Daily life in Sciences Po Rennes

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Practical information for mobile students

The voltage in France is 220 volts. If this differs from the voltage you have in your country, you can buy adaptors in supermarkets, allowing you to use your electrical appliances.

Accommodation

Sciences Po Rennes tells you before the end of June (or at the end of November for students who arrived for the second semester) if you can have a room in a university hall of residence.

The number of rooms allocated by the CROUS (Centre Régional des Oeuvres Universitaires) is very limited. Sheets and blankets will be furnished, you will also have a microwave oven and hotplates in the collective kitchen, but you will have to bring your own dishes (Zéphyr association can lend some kitchenware). There also is a WiFi connection for your personal computers. When you arrive you have to pay a caution equivalent to a rent of one month and the rent for the first month directly to the university hall of residence. Each month, you will have to pay the same day.

The university hall of residence will ask for these documents:

• 2 identity photos
• a medical certificate attesting that you are not carrying a contagious disease
• fire and water damage insurance and personal liability insurance

Halls of residence are managed by the CROUS, and Sciences Po Rennes has a partnership with it. This cooperation gives housing in decent conditions and at a reasonable price for the majority of foreign students. The presence of foreign students in the same block can be the opportunity to find compatriots, to talk your mother tongue. 

However, two advice must be given. The first one is to avoid being all the time with your compatriots: it does not help to improve your French. Another more important problem: a minority of foreign students thinks that the university hall of student is a nightclub or a bar of the “Road of Thirst”. They live it up there every night, the music is too loud, they drink too much and the other students cannot study. If the CROUS alerts us to such behavior, we would punish it. The risk is to loose rooms from university hall of residence for our foreign students. 

If you cannot have room in a university hall of residence, Zéphyr association can help you find a lodging. 

• You can rent a room in the inhabitant.
• You can rent a privately-owned accommodation. Please let Zéphyr know as soon as possible if you want to share it with French students. 

You will find accommodation adverts in free newspapers from Rennes or on CROUS notice boards, place Hoche, or at Sciences Po Rennes (at the entrance).
You have to take out a house insurance in university hall of residence or in private-owned accommodation in France. 

If you do an internship during your academic year in France, you have to provide to your host organization a certificate of insurance of a French organism for personal liability, accident and repatriation. You can have these kind of contracts with student health insurance companies in France (LMDE and SMEBA). 

Information and assistance can be provided by the following persons and information sources:

For a room in a residence hall : caroline.biard@sciencespo-rennes.fr

To find solutions for a better organisation of the « flat-hunt » : zephyrassociation@gmail.com