This summer, we are publishing the portrait of Saint-Martin students who left the island to study.
• First name: Layla
• Age : 20
• Study : 3rd year of license
in Strategy and Business Economics
• Place of residence: Paris
• Professional ambition: Financial Engineer
What is your background ?
Originally from the island of Saint-Barthélemy, educational opportunities end after college. So I chose the city of Paris to continue.
At the age of 14, and having no contact in France, I joined the private Catholic high school Notre-Dame de Sion which was the only establishment in Paris to offer reception 7 days a week. Only, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. At first, the cultural, environmental and social shock of the capital, but also and above all the school environment was a great disappointment! A quarter later, here I am dismissed by “mistake”, then reinstated in the establishment. So many upheavals. I then left the city of Paris, was out of school the rest of my second year (7nd and 2rd trimester), to finish my high school (first and final) in Guadeloupe, closer to my parents and the environment in which I grew up. I obtained my scientific baccalaureate there, specializing in engineering sciences, with honors.
Determined to rediscover the city of Paris in a different light, I decided to return there to continue my studies. I then integrated a preparatory economic and commercial scientific class (ECS) at the Lycée Montaigne (Paris 6), where I did not manage to flourish.
Today, and for three years, I am preparing my License in Management at the University of La Sorbonne Paris 1 with a view to a master's degree in financial engineering.
How did you make the decision to leave Saint-Barthélemy to study?
For lack of other possibilities on the island of Saint-Barthélemy. But I also deeply believe that the young people of the two islands need to go elsewhere to see what is happening, to get out of their bubble and discover the world very early on.
When you left Saint-Barthélemy, what was your feeling?
I left the island of Saint-Barthélemy with a thirst to discover the world, with the desire to see elsewhere what is happening. But I also left my island very, if not perhaps, too naively.
Have you encountered any difficulties? If so, which ones and how did you overcome them?
Now 20 years old, it's been six years since I left my little island. In my later years, I often felt on my own. My parents and I had to use our personal contacts to find host families / guarantors in Paris and Guadeloupe.
Indeed, in Guadeloupe, I was first accommodated by the principal of a college, who was the former principal of the college of Saint Barthélemy, then I was accommodated with a couple of gendarmes, in the barracks of gendarmerie de Baie Mahault, and I also lived in boarding school, before feeling ready to move into an apartment on my own at the age of 16/17.
Since you are party, what is your fondest memory?
My fondest memory was my return to Paris after my baccalaureate, a city that I first hated when I left it for the first time at 15 years old.
What advice would you give to high school graduates who hesitate to leave?
I would tell them that this is an adventure that takes courage, but I would tell them to go, to take what there is to take elsewhere, and come back to their island to bring their knowledge.
I would tell them that they will cry sometimes, that they will want to come home often, that the cold and the grayness is not funny, that people sometimes reject what is not like them, but I would tell them that they never do. will regret having left, that they will have extraordinary encounters, and above all, that they will realize how lucky they are to live on an island. (soualigapost.com)
7,081 total views
No comments