Running around in circle

Last Friday a girl from my Masters sent out an email saying Airbus (where she did her internship) was looking for someone who spoke English very well to do a 6 month internship writing a newsletter and interviewing people and lots of other neat communication things. She finished her email saying Airbus pays their interns well and it's a great place to work.

Fantastic! I thought. I wrote a nice cover letter and Monday morning called the woman with the line I learned from my Masters "Hello Mme ___, I was just about to send you my résumé for the ___ job/internship, but I wanted to ask you first abc..." I asked if she could accept an intern who was no longer registered at the university. She said yes as long as I could get a convention de stage. And she more or less talked as though she'd already accepted me for the internship, before even reading my résumé or meeting me.

After she'd read my application she responded wondering if I was looking for a job or an internship (since I just graduated). I told her both, but that since I haven't found a job yet, I'd prefer to do another internship than stay unemployed. Perfect she said, just send me that convention so we can get it signed.

At my ANPE meeting I asked if they could sign a convention de stage. No dice. They only do it if there's a promesse d'embauche for the end of the internship.

I emailed a woman I know from AVF who works at the bureau des stages at my university and asked if the internship could be attached to the previous school year if we signed the contract before Sept 30 (the official end of the school year). No dice, the dates of the internship have to be within the dates of the school year you sign it in.

At my university you had to get an application form before September 11th, so signing up for L1 to M1 wasn't possible. I thought maybe some Diplôme Universitaire would still be open.

I went by the Bureau des Langues at my university to see if I could sign up for some language diploma, even Français langue étrangère. First the woman was confused (Mais vous parlez bien le français déjà. Pourquoi vous voulez des cours?). Turns out you have to be registered in a License or Master to sign up for the language classes, and the ones that interested me the most (C1 and C2 speaking and writing in French) were reserved for PhD students.

Then I went to the Fac de lettres to see if I could sign up for their Diplôme d'études supérieur en Français. Too late, already filled up, deadline is passed. There's one last possibility that I can sign up for a L1 to M1 program. I emailed my registration form (yes, it's by email) for a M1 in Langues Appliqués (I think I'll choose English). B and I read on the internet that some recent reforms in the laws concerning internships mean a university can refuse a convention de stage if the internship has nothing to do with the program you're in, so I tried to pick something related. I guess they're trying to crack down on bogus enrollments just to get an internship (who, me?).

But there's the last hurdle of do I count as a foreign student or not? If I do, no registration for me, because those extra forms all had to be turned in in May or June. If my French M2 makes me a "normal" student, I just might have a chance.

All this running around has made me question if the internship is really worth it. While it seems like it would be a really great experience, I'll have to pay around 200€ (registration fees) just to be able to do it. In a sense, I'm paying them to employ me.

In my last email to my contact at Airbus I evoked the possibility of having a convention de stage libre, but being such a huge company, I think they have official procedures they can't depart from, so there's little chance that'll work.

At least tomorrow and Friday I'm going to a job fair at the local convention center. Maybe I'll get some leads there and I can forget this whole complicated mess. Time to get my CVs printed and make sure my clothes are ironed!