Babylangues Profile

It is the individuals that make up our Babylangues Community and each of them are all so talented, we feel that they deserve an article on our blog! Without further ado, we present… the Babylangues Profile!

From those that have worked in the office, to our Instructors and the founders of Babylangues itself, each individual that we have had the pleasure of working with is special in their own unique way and possesses their own talents and personal triumphs. This Babylangues Profile allows us to explore them as they should rightfully be celebrated: in all of their greatness and glory!

Annabelle

We took some time to talk to Annabelle, from our recruitment team, to find out about her studies, her love of Paris, and her plans to move to New York to work towards a PhD in contemporary French literature and art.

  • Firstly, could you tell me a little about how you came to be living in Paris?

Well, I have always loved learning languages and after taking A-Levels in English, Italian, French and German, I studied the latter two at Oxford. The course focused heavily on literature, which was perfect for me, and led to me choosing to attend classes at Sciences Po on my year abroad in Paris. I spent 9 months studying History of Art, and fell in love both with this subject, and with Paris, in the process. This city seemed to be the perfect place to discover the work of the old masters and of more modern artists, as we were surrounded by some of the best museums and art galleries in the world.

  • And so what made you decide to come back to Paris after your degree?

In the midst of the intensity of my final university of exams, and faced with the prospect of five years of studying for my PhD, I decided that I really wanted to take a year out of academia, and come back here to consolidate my French. I am definitely a city person, and I love Paris, because, unlike London, which I have always associated with the rat-race, for me it is unfailingly beautiful and romantic!

  • Why did you decide to do a PhD?

Even at the end of my year abroad I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I spent the summer doing a PR internship in London and hated it, and as I was really excited to return to Oxford and start studying again I realised that academia was what interested me the most. I looked into postgraduate programmes in the UK and they weren’t very well funded, so I began to search further afield, and got accepted onto a course at NYU. I am planning to focus on really modern French literature and art, my interest for which was piqued during my History of Art studies at Sciences Po. I find works from the late 20th/ 21st century very interesting because not much has been written on them yet and so there’s a lot to explore.

  • And finally, why are you excited to go to New York?

I want to be somewhere big and cosmopolitan while I’m young, and although it will be really different to Paris, there are certain parts of the city, such as Greenwich Village (where the NYU campus is situated), that have a more laid-back, bohemian feel, like Montmartre or the 5e arrondissement.