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Jamie Hansen, an international business student, followed a semester of studies in France with a six-month Parisian co-op. “The lifestyle there was just awesome,” Hansen says.
Jamie Hansen grew up in Chicago in something of a Francophile household.
“My parents both majored in French in college,” says Hansen, who is studying international business at Northeastern University. “Because of that I had this interest from a young age in doing a similar thing — like studying abroad in France, since they both did that.”
She checked off that box this past year in Paris — a semester of study abroad followed by a Paris co-op with Capgemini, a French tech consultant with offices in more than 50 countries.
“I chose Northeastern largely because we have this international business program where you can study abroad — it’s required to do so,” says Hansen, who has been taking classes in French since seventh grade.
Hansen served as a campus relations and employer branding intern during her six-month co-op.
“I was doing HR and campus relations,” says Hansen, who was part of a team recruiting young talent to work for Capgemini.
Hansen helped organize recruiting events at schools mainly in the Paris area. She was responsible for assembling teams of Capgemini consultants who had graduated from each school they were visiting.
“I would brief those consultants and then — on the back end — make sure that resumes from the school’s career fair got routed to the right recruiters,” Hansen says.
“The work was fast-moving,” adds Hansen, who learned to adapt to a variety of circumstances. “Sometimes we’d have a lot of campus fairs within the same month — sometimes within the same week — so I had to be fast paced while making sure that everyone was organized. Event planning is definitely a huge skill that I got out of it.”
Another benefit was her elevated command of French. While Hansen’s grasp of the language improved during her study abroad semester, the learning curve heightened while working in the office and representing Capgemini in those grassroots recruiting sessions.
“There was one event where some students were coming up to me in French and other students were speaking English,” Hansen says. “So I was switching between French and English and it was super challenging.”
She would have to come up with instant responses to student questions.
“I was making sure that I could direct them to the right people who had the answers when I didn’t have them, which I think is an important skill,” Hansen says. “I would say my French is a lot better. Every day, all day, my co-op was in French. Having that work experience where I’m using the language taught me a lot more than I learned even in the classroom.”
Since returning to the U.S. in July, Hansen has secured a third co-op — this one with TJX — that may help her decide whether to pursue a career in marketing after she graduates in 2025. (Hansen’s first co-op was with Wayfair in 2023.)
“My completely hypothetical plan is to work in the (United) States for five to 10 years, just to get a solid base here, and then maybe move back abroad,” Hansen says. “I really miss living in Paris. The lifestyle there was just awesome. But first I want to work in the U.S. for a little bit to figure out what I want to do exactly. And then potentially move back.”