10 Things I Wish I Knew Before HEC Paris (MiM Student Guide)

I joined HEC Paris straight out of a computer science bachelor’s in India and the first six months were a slow process of recalibrating every expectation I had about studying abroad. Some of what I assumed turned out to be wrong. Some of what nobody told me turned out to matter most. If you have just been admitted, or you are deciding whether to apply, here are the ten things I genuinely wish I had known before getting on the plane.

HEC Paris is not really in Paris

This is the one that surprises the most students. The campus sits in Jouy-en-Josas, a small village about ten kilometres from Versailles. To get to central Paris by public transport you are looking at roughly an hour and twenty minutes each way. There is one big supermarket outside campus, a pizzeria, and a couple of small restaurants in the village. Most of your daily life will happen on the campus itself.

The upside is the surrounding nature. The downside is the commute. If a Paris-based campus matters to you, this is one of the bigger trade-offs to weigh.

The student residences are actually nice

This pleasantly surprised me. The T1 studios have a balcony, large glass windows, a big desk, an equipped kitchenette, and a private bathroom. They were renovated relatively recently. The French government gives you CAF, a rental subsidy worth up to thirty percent of your rent. After the subsidy, my monthly rent came down to about four hundred euros. That is a price you will not find anywhere near Paris.

Do not bring or buy a lot of stuff

This advice scales with whether you take the gap year. After nine months in M1 you might end up in LA, Singapore, Berlin, or back home. Moving things internationally is expensive and stressful. Bring the essentials, plus a few items that make a room feel like yours, and buy the rest from Auchan or IKEA after you arrive. I wrote a longer breakdown in what to bring with you to France.

Learn French before coming

I cannot stress this enough. From the day you accept the offer, start French lessons. Reaching A1 or A2 before arrival gives you a base to build on. Beyond the practical benefits, making even a small effort to speak French warms people up to you. I started six to eight months before arrival, reached A1, and now sit somewhere around B1 or B2. That head start mattered. If you want a longer version, I wrote about how I learnt French.

The first semester is harder than you expect

You will take seven or eight courses at once, sit seven finals in forty-eight hours at the end, and learn subjects you have never touched if you come from a non-business background. Add the administrative paperwork France is famous for, the challenge of making friends in a new country, and a French language barrier on top, and the first three months become genuinely demanding.

If you can pace yourself, focus on output rather than perfection, and keep one or two non-academic outlets running, the second semester is significantly lighter. I unpacked more of the emotional side in my struggles at HEC Paris.

Finding a gap year internship can be really hard

The second semester is academically easier, but a new pressure shows up: the internship hunt. As an international student without strong French, this is where you will feel the friction. Everyone around you is talking about interviews, strategies, applications. It can feel like a race. It is not.

Some people land internships early because of connections or fluency. Others take longer. Everyone has different starting points and different goals. The good news is that even if the first one is slow, the second one is consistently easier. I broke down the full search process in how I found my gap year internships.

Learn some basic cooking

You will not always have time or appetite for the student restaurant, especially during exam weeks. Knowing how to cook a few meals saves money, beats the vending machine sandwiches, and gives you a reason to invite people over. Social currency on a campus this small is real, and home-cooked food goes a long way.

The HEC lake is genuinely beautiful

A short walk down from the main campus is a large lake with picnic tables, a barbecue, and walking paths. It is the best place to run, read, or recover after exams. In autumn and spring it is one of the prettier student campuses I have seen in Europe. Parties by the lake are a regular feature once the weather is warm. The campus has more of these spots than the brochures show.

HEC parties get wild

Thursday nights are the Party of the Week. Beyond that there are residence parties, lake parties, parties at Le Zinc which is the campus bar, and the occasional impromptu gathering. HEC students work hard and party harder. Whether you drink or not, the social culture is intense. If you want a master’s where the social experience is part of the deal, this is one of the things that delivers.

Everyone comes from a different background

The campus has over a hundred nationalities. Some students have years of work experience. Some are fresh out of college. Some speak four languages. Some have family connections in the industry. Comparing yourself to a classmate when you started from completely different places is one of the fastest ways to feel inadequate.

The mental model I eventually settled on was this: figure out your own path, focus on your own metrics, and ignore what everyone else is doing in any way that affects your own decisions. It sounds obvious. It is genuinely hard in practice.

How to actually prepare

If you have read this far and you are about to start, my honest preparation list is short: study French, read two or three good business books like the ones I recommend, and write down what you want from the program. The clarity you bring on day one shapes the next three years more than any class will.

I also wrote a follow-up of sorts: what I would tell myself if I was starting the MiM all over again. It picks up where this list ends.