The majority of students at Lyon’s Cité Scolaire Internationale (Anglophone section) are likely to stay in France for university, the school’s head of Anglophone section, Simon Herd, told The PIE during a university fair held by SRT Fairs on November 6.

Those looking to study abroad were most likely to be tempted by universities in the UK because many students have links to the country, although interest in the Netherlands has “exponentially increased in recent years”, he added. Meanwhile, Canada remains a “very, very” popular choice for Cité Scolaire Internationale students – likely due to its links to the commonwealth as well as Francophone study opportunities in Québec, he suggested.

Attended by a large cohort of French high schoolers, representatives from top universities around the world gathered at the school in Lyon for SRT’s international student fair to talk prospective students through their options, answer their questions and give them a flavour of what to expect from studying at their institution.

Universities from around Europe, the UK and the US attended the event, with many questions from students focussing on financing their studies – especially in light of Brexit, which may make studying in the the UK significantly more expensive even for UK citizens living in the EU at the time of their application.

The UK’s withdrawal from Europe could therefore have a noticeable effect on how many students from Lyon’s Cité Scolaire Internationale choose to study in the country, members of the school’s faculty said.

Herd told The PIE that the students at his school were benefitting from learning more about different institutions at the university fair – with many considering studying abroad due to their international backgrounds.

“The kids who are here, the world really is their playground,” he said.

The kids who are here, the world really is their playground
^{_{Simon Herd, Cité Scolaire Internationale (Anglophone section)}}

He continued: “They see all these universities talking about the world being their playground [at the university fair]. They get to see it, it gives them ideas, it gets them to begin shaping those kinds of ideas that they might have about what they’ll do later.”

Abiel Zambiri, a Cité Scolaire Internationale student who attended the fair, told The PIE he was considering heading to Switzerland, Germany or the Netherlands for university, and is looking to study civil engineering.

“These three countries have really good engineering programs and a lot of them are in English. That’s something that’s really important for me because it’s my first language,” he said.

Meanwhile, fellow student Hannah Herd said she was weighing up studying in the UK, Hong Kong or staying in France.

“I’m English but I’ve never actually lived in the UK so I’d like to see what it’s like and connect with my cultural heritage,” she shared. “I used to live [in Hong Kong] so I’d really like to go back and see what it’s like, especially as an adult because I’m sure it’s very different to when I was a child. And [I like the idea of] France because I’m currently living here and I’d like to keep my level of French up and I think it would be a great experience to go to university here.”