How Nicole Ari Parker’s Daughter Sophie Connected with Apple Martin at Paris Deb Ball: ‘We All Cross Paths’ (Exclusive)

Sophie Kodjoe is thrilled to be connected with such an impressive cohort of women.

The daughter of Nicole Ari Parker and Boris Kodjoe was one of the high profile participants who took part in the Le Bal des Débutantes in Paris on Nov. 30, an annual event that introduces about 20 women between the ages of 16 and 22 into high society.

This year’s debutantes included Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s daughter Apple Martin, Sophia Loren’s granddaughter Lucia Sofia Ponti and other impressive young women with royal titles and standings.

In her exclusive conversation with PEOPLE, Kodjoe, 19, opened up about how much she enjoyed meeting the other debutantes and how she unexpectedly discovered they were all connected in some shape or form.

“At first, I was nervous because sometimes I get nervous around new people,” she said of meeting her peers. “Especially with all these amazing young women my age, and they’re all doing amazing things in other parts of the world. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t have a title. I’m just Sophie from LA.'”

Once she got past her initial fears, Kodjoe said that “everyone was very nice and I made lots of very nice friends instantly. It was like the whole group just clicked.”

“I didn’t realize it but Apple was running in the same circles that I was. She went to Crossroads and Harvard-Westlake [high school],” she recalled. “Basically, all of my friends also went to Crossroads and Harvard-Westlake, so we were just talking about people that we knew and our time in high school.”

“It was very cool to see how we all cross paths. I think it was really cool because, I guess Apple’s from LA, and Lucia lives sometimes in LA, sometimes in France,” Kodjoe explained. “I just thought that was so crazy that we all knew someone or on in each other in some way.”

Now that she’s out in high society, the Howard University student confessed she hadn’t expected to get so much attention through this whirlwind experience.

“I didn’t even think I would be this out in society, because there’s so many amazing women that I did this with — not even just their titles. They’re just so pretty, and so talented, and so well-traveled, and well-etiquette and all of this stuff,” she continued, noting how down-to-earth they were.

“They were very grounded and they just seemed like well-rounded, well-traveled, non-ignorant human beings that I was very lucky and happy to interact with,” Kodjoe explained. “We had real life conversations like, ‘What are you studying in school?'”

She adds, “They were also very humble and very kind. They were just grateful.”