What to expect from the exchange programme with EDHEC Business School
How open are the professors at EDHEC Business School? Who supports exchange students in Lille? What is it like to live with a French host family? You can find answers to these and other questions in the review by Alexandrina Naydenko, a second-year Master’s student of the “Business Development Strategies” programme, who returned from her exchange semester.
I chose EDHEC after checking various international rankings, and this university is ranked among the top 5 business schools in France. HSE offers several top European universities to choose from, but based on my own criteria, EDHEC was the best fit — especially because it offered the perfect Master’s programme for me: Strategy, Consulting and Digital Transformation. It’s ranked in the TOP 12 MSc in Strategy worldwide by The Economist 2019.
Natalia Bukhstabber helped me prepare the application, documents, and resolve other tasks before departure. She was always available, answered my questions, and gave advice and recommendations when needed. She supported us and stayed in touch even after we left. Huge thanks to her!
The most difficult part of preparing for the trip was obtaining a visa. A student visa for France is neither fast nor cheap, with many specific nuances, so it requires special attention and, most importantly, must be done well in advance.
From the moment EDHEC approves your application, communicating with them becomes a pleasure. The International Office staff are very open to any of your questions. They inform you in advance about everything you need to know before arrival, organize a shuttle from the airport to the university for students a few days before the semester starts, help with documents, and even assist some students in finding housing. While you're in France, they remain the coordinators for international students and are there to help with absolutely any issue. They even helped me open a bank account.
EDHEC takes its exchange students seriously and often organizes various free events for them: trips to fairs, French movie nights, wine tastings.
In Lille, I rented a room in the house of a French couple. On the same floor, there was a Mexican guy and an Australian guy living in the neighboring rooms. Some students prefer to rent apartments where only students live, but I wanted to immerse myself in French family culture — and I succeeded. Although I don’t speak French well and the family didn’t speak much English, we managed to find a common language. I got to observe their daily life — habits, interactions with neighbors, traditions, how they handled everyday things, decorated their home, created comfort, and cooked. This family gave me a lasting impression of what French family life is like.
As for studies — I really liked the professors, who were very open with students. After classes, they answered questions, shared resources, recommended readings, gave us their LinkedIn contacts, and were always ready to stay in touch. All academic processes were easy to monitor through a phone app — attendance, schedules, deadline reminders, grades. EDHEC pays special attention to career-related events — at least every two weeks, company representatives or alumni would come to give lectures, workshops, feedback, advice, or conduct interviews.
At EDHEC, I met people from many different countries. I was surprised that a third of the group consisted of Chinese and Indian students, and they actively participated in student life. This made the educational process even more interesting, as team assignments were often done in random groups, so you never knew who you’d be working with next. Luckily, this gave me the chance to get to know and befriend people from all over the world.
Within a few weeks at EDHEC, I found around 20 Russian students (some came from the same university, some overheard Russian in the cafeteria, or saw a Russian surname in the group list). We created a VK chat and often had lunch together at the university. Almost every Friday, we had “Russian evenings” — cooked together, played board games, and hung out. Sometimes we went on trips together.
Being in Europe means having the chance to visit very interesting places for very little money. You can use FlixBus, BlaBlaBus, EasyJet, RyanAir, and other companies. I flew to Italy for €40 round trip, and sometimes found tickets for as low as €5 one way. When my mom came to visit, we went to Brussels for €1. In this sense, Europe is a super convenient travel hub :)
Upon returning, I had no problems with the academic office: all the courses were successfully transferred from France.
Even though I wrote a lot, it’s really hard to fit everything I felt during those 4 months into one text. It’s impossible to describe the most important thing right away — the impression of the people who taught me something new, showed kindness, shared their experience, or made me think about things I’d never considered before. And that’s the most valuable thing I took away from this trip. Thank you, HSE, for that!