For non-french readers, I apologize but I had to write this in french, please understand.

Une personne qui m'était très chère nous a quitté ce week end, il s'agit de ma grand-mère. Je suis profondément triste car mamie est celle a qui l'on doit presque tout, celle qui nous a éduqué tout petit et sans qui je ne serais peut être pas là où je suis à l'heure actuelle. Le bonheur que je vis actuellement, je le lui dois, et je me sens coupable de ne pas avoir pu lui faire partager cela davantage. Néanmoins, je suis soulagé que ces souffrances aient pris fin. C'est une grande perte pour la famille Daguerre tant elle avait d'amour pour chacun d'entre nous...

Mamie, repose en paix avec l'amour des tiens

Chi-town is magic

For my first time in Chicago, I must admit that I have been very impressed: Chicago is really huge, and pretty nice! I like how the Lake Michigan contrasts with the skyline of the city, it really feels like you are facing the ocean! Surburbans areas like Lincoln Park remind me of the movies I see on TV, with large streets where hundreds of SUV are parked, terraced houses with small front gardens, many joggers and a lot of trees and grass. Downtown looks definitely like New York, however the different rivers crossing the CBD gives it more charm.

We were lucky because it was very sunny (and warm) and during the entire week there was an "air and water show"; many military airplanes were flying over the city, sometimes very low which made a lot of noise, and we could assist to the exhibition alongside Lake Michigan, that was awesome!



We used our time there to visit DePaul University and it looks really nice! The campus is broad although close from downtown, very well equiped and with a lot of vegetation. The downtown campus is more serious; the entrance hall is very fancy and looks like the headquarters of a multinational company!

We also had a drink in the Hancock Tower (one of the tallest skyscrapers in Chicago) at the 92th floor! There was a great view of the region, and you could see straight lines of lights forming the city.


I would like to thank Connor and Maksim for being so available and patient during this week, the americans did their part of the welcoming job very well!



Being in America raises some worries, the most important of them being the food. So many fast foods everywhere is a big concern for us and we all weighted ourselves before leaving, officially I weigh 76kg! Let's see how its going to evolve!

Bilan à mi-chemin

I have some time to kill in my hotel room in Dublin, time for some writing! –

Now that the first year is over and the second year in the US is approaching, I would like to share some thoughts about this program, this experience so far. What an interesting experiment! This program mixed up many different profiles which makes it very interesting to compare them to each others. First, there are 3 main nationalities, Americans, Swedes, French, and some “minor” nationalities (Lina is German, Maksim is Ukrainian, Camilo is Colombian). Second, there are three different types of schools: a private university (DePaul), two public universities (LiU and WiU), and a business school (ECE). Third, whereas DePaul’s CTI is specialized in Information Systems and Technologies (with the exception of Connor, studying film), the three other universities enrolled business students to this program. Last but not least, the American students are divided between one university from a big city (DePaul) and one from the countryside (WiU). In addition to these four points, the different students show very different personalities, it goes without saying that living in this tiny Babel tower is very rich.

I don’t know what I should start with to summarize what I observed during the last 10 months. Let’s start with academic considerations. For this point, all three nationalities are VERY different. Swedes seemed to be the best students, hard workers, very serious and organized; they could travel during the week end and still be at school on Monday with their homework done. They are also much better than French for languages (I will skip the comparison with Americans for that point… J )! All Swedes have perfect oral skills in English (sometimes written was not as good), as well as a very strong third language, usually German or French. On the other side, Americans were not hard worker, but usually very smart and participating to discussions all the time. They seemed not used to spend hours and hours to study, but rather have a solid content that they understand and therefore remember easily, they have a very critical mind, asking relevant questions, and know a lot of concrete business. This is my explanation why some Americans were complaining about the academic level of the classes provided in France at first, because they are more used to teachers that make the work easy for us to remember, whereas in Europe they expect you to figure out stuff by yourself.

Although the French students are not as smart or organized than the rest of the groups, everybody did fine this year. I think that it is mostly due by the way we work, less organized but much more reactive. We don’t usually stress if we are a little late and approaching the deadline, whereas it seemed to me that Swedes had trouble working out of the organized and structured way; Americans tended to lose hope and blame the system sometimes. What surprised me is how sometimes we can be very positive toward things, probably because we are very happy of the situation; I think it helped us find the motivation to get things done when clock was running. In a whole, Americans are the faster to get the work done, the Swedes the slower, but the result is very different.

Americans are much more confident than Europeans, especially the DePaul guys because they are very skilled at what they do. If you tell one of them that he is wrong, you’d better have a solid explanation! I sometimes felt that it was a little arrogant, though they often tell you when they don’t understand something. Americans and French were better for everything that was concrete, like Management Control’s case studies, whereas the Swedes were much better for more academic work.

Concerning social behavior, there are also many interesting observations to make. It is amazing how Americans are at ease with people they barely know. Whereas Depaul students used to be more “individual”, Western Illinois’ students used to hang out together all the time! That is probably because IS or IT guys might be used to work alone rather than in a team (but I am not sure about that) compared to business students who are used to work as groups. They talk to you as if they had known you for years! They like to party, joke, ask questions about curiosities of our country. The Swedes too are very very friendly, but not as “open” as the Americans. They are extremely nice with you even when they don’t know you but without being “intimate” (not sure the word is accurate).

to be continued...

Not so close!

Well, everything did not go as fine as I was expecting... Unfortunately for my banker, I was missing a paper that was mandatory to pass the US port of entry! This I-20 form costs me about €1,000 because I am now stuck in Dublin, forced to buy a new plane ticket in the middle of august, and to settle in a €90/night hotel... Apparently, having graduated does not automatically mean that you have become smart

Getting closer

There are only a few days left before I fly to Chicago, and I am having mixed feelings right now. I was very excited about going to the US before, because it has always been a dream for me to study in this country, but I do feel that I will terribly miss home.

I am not a big fan of the so called "theories of culture shock" that I think are simple things, modelized by "experts" in search of credibility (I might be a little tough); whatever, what I want to talk about is that strange feeling of being torn between places I created an emotional link with. I started to really appreciate Sweden but had to leave it early which was quite frustrating because I was about to enjoy it a lot. Nevertheless, my return to France was incredible! After having been living in Bordeaux for the last 20 years, I never enjoyed it as much as I did during this summer!! The town has changed a lot, and is now an extraordinary (if not legen-dary) place to live in. The region offers so many different types of landscapes and summer activities, that no one day look like the previous ones; I am enjoying the presence of my family, my friends, beaches, restaurants, wine, and many exhibition like "Bordeaux fête le vin". Bordeaux is running for the "European Capital of Culture 2013" and therefore is making huge efforts to open itself more to tourism and Europe. It feels like the city is electric, more dynamic than ever!

It feels so good to be home right now that I don't want to leave the city at its best, even for the country that I have been dreaming of for years now! It just feels like its now the best time, but I have to go on. Don't think that I am complaining, my life is a dream and I am the luckiest person in the world, but traveling quite intensively made me appreciate home much better, and I am torn between so many places I love and I don't know anymore whether I am happy or sad...

On top of Bordeaux's cityhall, the French, European and American flags

Graduate!

I am sorry for not keeping this blog very active recently but I had so many things in mind and to do, like packing for example! Anyway, I am very pleased to inform you all that I officially graduated from Linköping University!

"Bachelor of Business Administration - International"

The ceremony was very pleasant as well as the lunch we had right after! I am very proud and I'd like to congratulate once again everybody from the Atlantis Program after everything we have "been through" (even if my atlantis experience was as smooth as possible personnally!).

The first phase of the Programme is now definitely over and on overall it is an incredible experience that I don't regret. It helped me become a lot more mature and I think I got a little bit americanized as well as swedishized (copyright to myself)!! Hanging out with the american a lot was very interesting and I know their culture much better now, which explains a lot of stereotypes we see negatively from our european perspective. On the other side, living in sweden helped me getting routines, and organizing my time! I had a budget to track my expenses, I used to go to the gym regularly, was preparing food for the entire week and had strict planning for the thesis work (and we always were on time so I think it worked pretty well).
Nevertheless, the contact with swedes has not been intense so these are just very simple things. I regret not to have talked much swedish even if I had 6 swede in my corridor, but they speak such a good english that you don't feel forced to speak swedish... I will definitely miss Sweden, especially now that the weather is so nice and everybody so excited about it, but I will participate to the traditional midsommer with some of the atlantis students thanks to Johanna!

Final Seminar

The long-awaited day of the final seminar is now behind me! After weeks of intense studying and stress, I feel very relieved now that it is done! First of all, I would like to congratulate all the Atlantis students for passing the thesis, and thank our teachers for the smooth running of the class. I know some students were very worried about the thesis and absolutely not confident in passing, but in the end everybody passed!!

That was a very interesting day, even if the discussion tended to go off track sometimes, but in a whole the discussion was good and pretty much everybody participated! Linnea and Connor were our opponents (or "discussants", teachers say) and they did a good job by questionning us on things we did not think about and that were very relevant. I'd like to adress special congratulations to Mr. Greenberg, whose thesis we had to review, and had an excellent defense despite some unlucky facts that made his work almost impossible to complete. This kid is brilliant.

Finally, I am very happy that Per and I passed the thesis! Per did a great job, almost keeping me on track and motivating me with some swedish organizational skills, that was a real pleasure to carry this work out with such a good student, and a good friend. We did not only passed but also had an A! That was totally unexpected and I am very proud of our work! The thesis remains a very good experience, even if sometimes it felt very very academical (way different from the way business is taught at ECE), there was a real knowledge creation process.