Lyon, France: Intensive French, Undergrad Studies in English

I 1000% would recommend this program to anyone who asks me about it. I studied abroad through USAC in Lyon in the summer of 2023 and had the most remarkable time of my life. I am an athlete so going abroad during a fall or winter semester wasn't an option for me. Despite this, I have always always wanted to study abroad and USAC gave me the most perfect opportunity. I met so many remarkable people (the majority of whom I am still great friends with!!) and experienced so many new things. While I was in France I was able to study under amazing professors who enhanced by knowledge of the French language but what I valued most were the cultural experiences. Having dinner with my classmates in Old Lyon, eating bread and drinking wine on the banks of the river, and the traveling I was able to do are some of my favourite memories of France. Lyon is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and I am so lucky to have had this opportunity. I was 19 years old at the time and I'm female but I felt so safe the entire time and enjoyed every second of my experience.

Going to Lyon has been one of the best experiences of my entire life! I have met so many amazing people worldwide that I am thankfully still in contact with a few months after my study abroad trip. It was easy to make than the level I was in. The adjustment to advance to higher levels if I felt my French was more advanced than the level I was in. My French improved greatly over the 5 weeks I spent in Lyon. Partly because I part in the effort to learn, partly because the classes were so helpful, and partly because of the Lyon natives who were willing to help me with corrections and sometimes through conversation. I would definitely reccomend Lyon to anybody interested in studying abroad in Europe!

I will not lie, I was worried before I went abroad. Some of the readings made me think we were gonna be reigned in and policed in our time abroad. Nothing could have been further from the truth. USAC Lyon gave us all the tools we needed to succeed and cut us loose, with support in the office should we need it for anything. Stefano and Olga do such a good job organizing, supporting and helping students and their activities. I cannot say enough good thing about them and the work that they did which enabled us to have the experience that we did. Moving on to said experience, I cannot say enough good things about my time abroad. It truly was the most fun, most interesting, most impactful thing that I have ever done in my life. Living in student housing was great. I loved my little shoe box room and made great friends with people from around the world in our dorm. The program was also fantastic. I feel like my French fortified so quickly and the instruction made it much more practical then ever before. I also made friends from around the world in my classes, some of which I will be going back to France, or somewhere else, to see. The ILCF enabled this level of cultural exchange which made the experience even more powerful and worldly. I also made some of the closest friends in my life from the group of USAC students in Lyon. People who I didn't know at the beginning of 2024 are now some of my closest friends, and are people I will know and cherish forever. Lyon is also a fantastic city that I think about every day. It really feels so French, and people will speak to you in French as well. I am a rather large, rather American-looking gentlemen, but never did people speak English to me, or even think I was American. Getting to really immerse myself in the culture and the language made this an even more powerful experience. I think and long for Lyon every day, I have been home almost 5 months at this point and there has not been a day where I don't think about Lyon and all the people and places which made it so special. I can't emphasize that enough. To conclude, I cannot say enough good things about USAC Lyon. The city, the program, the organizers, the people I met along the way, the food, new friends. All of it. I will be grateful for the experience I had for the rest of my life, and it has left with a profound curiosity and a strong desire to return to France for some period of time. I think about it every day. If you are thinking about this program or France in general: go, please go. You will not regret it, and with USAC, you're in the best hands you could be in.