La notion de famille semble vraiment identique pour les étudiants du MIT et ceux de l’ENSEIRB. C’est à dire que tout le monde pense au support, à la joie et au refuge que la famille représente.

Overall, I completely agree with Pierre in that the MIT and ENSEIRB students have very similar conceptions of family, built around close family members, love, and a home. The biggest difference, I think, is that the MIT students tend to think of pets or friends as part of their family and ENSEIRB students tend to more often think of cousins when they think of family.

Yes I would agree with Collin. It is very similar in many ways the most common word used on both sides is “love”. I do think that the definition of family on the MIT side is more general and less people listed things like mother father and siblings on the MIT side.

I agree with Pierre and everyone in that family is a positive concept for both MIT and ENSEIRB students. I agree with Collin and rsholler that the idea of family is more abstract for MIT students and more concrete for ENSEIRB students, as MIT students’ definition of family encompasses friends and peace while ENSEIRB students think first of individual people in their families. However both students mention love many times and have many shared words implying very similar thoughts about family.

As we mentioned in class, distance plays a large role in the perception of family in the U. S. versus in France. In the U. S., we oftentimes are far away from our families, especially after entering the workforce. As such, our inherent need to belong to something and to have a close group of people to us drives us to extend our love to our friends and pets who are likely to be nearer to us than our families. Therefore, this changes the definition of family for Americans. In France however, most places are within a 2 hour train ride, so visitation is much easier and the definition of family can be more restrictive since they do not have as noticeable of a void as some Americans do.

Echoing the previous comments, it certainly appears that we define the core of family quite similarly, with some details being different. For the MIT students, perhaps a friend or a pet is an important part of their family, while ENSEIRB students may more readily think of cousins or extended family. I definitely think this idea is worth discussing further, so for MIT students, do you consider your friends and pets do be part of your family? For ENSEIRB students, are there conditions where you would consider friends or pets as family?

I definitely agree with the above comments. Both MIT and ENSEIRB students seem to have the same base for family - loe, parents, and happiness. The ENSEIRB students mention extended family more often (such as cousins and grandparents), while the MIT students mention slightly more abstract concepts (powerful). I wonder how often students in France typically see their extended family (as compared to American students)?

Comme dit dans les autres commentaires, on retrouve les mêmes pensées que ce soit du côté des élèves du MIT ou des élèves de l’ENSEIRB. Ce qu’on retrouve le plus est l’amour, les membres de la famille. Ce n’est pas choquant.

Pour répondre à Collin, oui il nous arrive assez souvent d’admettre un certain groupe d’amis comme un famille (en ce qui concerne les animaux domestique non). Notamment que pour les études nous sommes pour la plupart loin de notre famille, ce qui justifie probablement que nous associons ces personnes comme notre famille. J’imagine que c’est la même situation au MIT

Pour répondre à Wendy, je pense que nous sommes plus proches de nos cousin et autres de par la proximité qui existe en France c’est une petit pays et il est plus simple de faire des regroupement familiaux tel que des cousinades et autres , c’est pour cela que nombreux sont ceux qui citent leurs cousins, tante et oncles.