I want to shed some light in the cliché I used to hear at the university, which goes by: “participating in a student exchange program is a life changing-experience”. I had no doubts that it potentially could be, but my engineer mind begged for a more concrete explanation: “what’s so special? why do you think that?”
I lived in Grenoble, France, for 2 years which should qualify me to answer it. I tried doing that multiple times, but I didn’t feel my answers were any less abstract as the cliché. This is another attempt to do so. Let me know, dear reader, how successful it was.
pre-France
From the very first day at the university we were told it was a possibility to study in France, provided that you had a good enough proficiency level in French, had good enough grades, etc. My thought process was: “well, let’s take some French lessons. In the worst scenario, I’ll learn a new language. In the best one, I’ll be able to move there for a while”. When the time to apply to the exchange program has came, I figured: “let’s do it, if I qualify, I can still withdraw. Not even trying gives me no option at all”. Finally, once I was selected, “I came this far already, I have no reason not to go, right?”
You can see by now that I was not particularly sure of what I was doing. Up until this point, I’d describe myself as a cartesian person, someone very logical, who guided his decisions based on facts. I saw myself as this since early memories from elementary school, where I leaned towards math-related areas due to good results in exams, positive reinforcement from family and teachers.
When deciding what to do for life, it was clear to me Engineer was the option. The question was: which one? I ended up going to Embedded Systems because it was the perfect mix between Computer Science and Electrical Engineer
France
I wasn’t conscious of that at the time, but the Lucas who arrived in France thought electrical engineers were the ones to drive the world. After all, “who lives without electricity?” Or, more than that, “wasn’t electricity the most important discovery of the human kind?” The first hit came already in my trip from Curitiba, Brazil to Grenoble, France. After 24 hours of departing my hometown, we reached Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and needed to buy a train ticket to Grenoble. The salesperson could not understand my G-r-e-n-o-b-l-e pronunciation. I’ve studied French for ~4 years and I’m unable to say the name of the city I’ll be living for the 2 years?!? What kind of a fraud am I?
I lost count of the number of times people squeezed their eyes while I was attempting to communicate in French. While I felt comfortable in English, French was a different beast, pretty difficult one to tame. Similar situations kept piling up until Christmas that year.
Being a university city, Grenoble was not particularly crowded in Christmas. European students would go back to their home countries, leaving the city empty. Being away from family in such a period was a strong hit. That was possibly the first time that I really questioned whether an electrical engineer was that special after all.
Fast-forwarding for brevity, my 2-years in France were topsy-turvy. From one hand, I met some great people who I’ll remember for a good time (Marco Rios, Eduardo Esmanhotto, Rodrigo Mesquita and so many others). I experienced what is like to be a foreigner in another country. I loved the French tacos. I had the opportunity to play soccer in amazing fields, to play tennis in very good courts, to play “The girl from Ipanema” song a thousand times with mostly astonishing reactions like “wow, I didn’t see that coming, excellent choice”. On the other hand, I learned the hard way about the human part of human being; that loneliness can be unbearable sometimes. I learned how difficult it is to express what you’ve been through. I learned it was impossible to transmit all this rich experience to someone to the other part of the Atlantic. I failed on integrating myself with French people in general, from university to work colleagues.
post-France
Back in Brazil, I remember vividly how happy I was to speak Portuguese again. I felt my new superpower was to communicate with others in the exact level of granularity I wanted. After a few days, a colleague of mine told me (I beg your pardon to give me a chance to clarify what, I think, is the deep knowledge behind this phrase, even though this raw-translated-version might sound offensive):
…You know, these people who go to France, they come back either fat or gay…
Initially, I thought I did not fit any option. After years thinking about, I’m sure I metaphorically came back gay. I was no longer the rational, I transformed into someone who began reading about philosophical themes, human behavior and relationships. It took me a long time to realize how much I loved the French idiom itself and being ok with that. (former Lucas would not believe that at all. On top of that, he would judge it as “superficial”)
I have zero regrets of doing what I did. I’m very proud of who I became and I’m completely aware of how being away from my culture had many benefits in developing me as a human being. I feel like the world sent me a clear message to be more humble and be willing to learn from all experiences. This is one of the mantras I stand by.