Hannah Gersten, HiLi 2019 – 2020

I came to Paris to pursue a master’s in the HiLi program with the hopes of making a life in France long-term. I soon realized that HiLi is a world unlike any other, gathering a motley assortment of students: passionate Francophiles like myself and students living abroad for the first time; young professionals seeking to start a career after their degrees, and scholars hoping to enter a Ph.D program and begin a life in academia; only-ever-been students and returning students who have seen the “real world” and returned to tell the tale. While this breadth of experiences was perhaps the source of a shock to my system when I first arrived at Reid Hall, it is in fact one of the program’s strengths – you truly get out of HiLi what you put into it. Not in terms of a lever where energy in equals results out, but rather in terms of the variety of paths students take after a year in the program. Christine Valero takes the time to deeply understand the personal and professional objectives of each HiLi student and guides them in the direction of their future goals all throughout the year, from job and internship opportunities to the choice of M.A. essay director, and to opportunities to stay in France after completing the program. I feel like so many of us have been able to use the HiLi program to get us where we want to be, as different as those endpoints are. 

Because my ultimate goal was to gain experience and create connections that would allow me to stay in France following HiLi, the outbreak of Covid-19 in March of 2020 and the instability that the pandemic triggered for our program was concerning. I had quit my job in Boston, sold my furniture, and left behind my life in America to move to France, so the prospect of being sent “home” terrified me. I didn’t know where I would go. I ended up staying in Paris in my 14m2 studio during France’s first home confinement, continuing our HiLi classes and my courses at the French universities online and only going outside to get groceries or exercise for nearly two months. It was hard—really, really hard. But I was constantly in touch with the other students who had decided to stay, all of us sharing the sentiment that Paris is where we were meant to be, not only on the bright and sunny days but also when things got hard, and Christine was only a Zoom call away. Over the summer, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France reopened, and I spent most of my days in August biking across the empty city to the library to work on my thesis. This dedicated research time was crucial for being able to complete my research and writing. At the end of the summer, Christine helped me compile an application to continue my studies with an M2 in literature at the EHESS, the university where my M.A. essay director (Judith Lyon-Caen) teaches. Though we had several courses in-person this fall, the bulk of the program has been online, which has been a huge disappointment and has made completing my personal research and making friends in the program very challenging. But I still feel that Paris is where I am meant to be, and I am grateful for the independence that comes with living on my own in the city that I love, even though this past year has come with a lot of loneliness. At the end of my master’s program this fall, I will begin searching for a job in Paris in order to stay and begin my professional life here. 

The past year has been so different from what I could have expected. But I’m happy to have stayed, glad to still be here in Paris, and grateful to be able to go to Reid Hall from time to time to meet with Christine or read for a bit in the garden.