W
e invite you to explore all that the city of Paris has to offer during a five-week program based at Columbia's Reid Hall in Paris. Choose from the French Immersion Track or the English Track. On this program, you will explore both contemporary and historical issues in French and Francophone culture and go outside of the typical tourist experience to gain an insider’s view of the city.
Program Overview
On this program, students will learn about the layered history, culture, and society of France and the Francophone world. The academic curriculum is suitable for many different majors, and students do not need to have a French language background to apply.
The course offerings will provide students with opportunities to deepen their appreciation of Parisian culture, improve French language skills, and learn more about French/Francophone culture. Students will take a total of six points.
This five-week program will take place from Sunday, June 22nd, 2025 to Saturday, July 26th, 2025. Classes are typically Monday to Thursday, while on Fridays activities are planned in conjunction with the courses to offer more cultural exposure to the city.
Eligibility and Application
ELIGIBILITY
- Currently enrolled undergraduate students in good academic and disciplinary standing
- Graduate students and post-graduates are all eligible to apply
- Minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA. Students must also maintain a 3.0 GPA during the semester before going abroad
- Minimum 3.0 average language GPA (if applicable)
- Students must meet prerequisites for individual courses; for instance, if you plan to participate on the French Immersion Track, you must have taken at least 4 semesters of French (or the equivalent) to qualify
How to apply
Want to apply? Click the “Start Your Application" button at the top of this page. If the button doesn't appear, the program is not yet accepting applications. You will be asked to set up a short profile, which will allow us to send you relevant information about your application. Once you’ve created a profile, you will see a checklist of items that you will need to submit. These generally include:
- Application questionnaire(s)
- Personal statement
- Letter of Recommendation
- If you are applying to the French Immersion Track, your recommender typically be your most recent French instructor.
- Home School Approval/Clearance: If applying from another university, please check with your home university's study abroad office about applying for permission to attend the program and transfer the credit.
- Application fee (if applying from another university)
Academics
Participants choose their courses according to personal aspirations and interests as well as the course schedule. Please note that the course offerings and schedule are still subject to change. Attendance at all class meetings, concerts, and excursions, unless otherwise indicated, is mandatory.
Note: The University reserves the right to withdraw or modify the courses of instruction or to change the instructors as may become necessary.
SUMMER 2025 COURSES
The French and Francophone culture courses are all designed to deepen your engagement with the paradoxes, pleasures, and contradictions of Paris, France, and France's relationship with its former colonies. These courses will challenge you to look at the history and culture of France from various perspectives while using the city as an essential resource throughout the program. You may select courses from either the French Immersion Track OR the English Track — students may not "mix and match" courses from both tracks.
FRENCH IMMERSION TRACK
FREN3632OC: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexual Orientation in theTwenty-First Century French and Francophone Literature and Film, 3 credits
Instructor Laurence Marie, Lecturer in French, Columbia University
Taught in French.
In this course, students will explore the representations of inequality and identity in French and Francophone literature and films released in the last decade. Drawing from the specificities of French history and culture, they will analyze structures of oppression and forms of agency depicted in the stories of individuals confronted by discrimination. Students will have the opportunity to meet several of the authors studied. Writers include David Diop, Abdellah Taïa, Kaoutar Harchi, Djaïli Amadou Amal, Edouard Louis, Constance Debré, Camille Laurens, and Virginie Despentes.Film directors include Alice Diop, Ladj Ly, Céline Sciamma, Houda Benyamina, and Sébastien Lifshitz.
FRST3994OC: History of Contemporary French Cinema (1990-2018), 3 credits
Instructor Fabien Delmas
Taught in French.
French cinema is characterized by its artistic richness, its vigor, and, above all, its diversity. This film history course will function as a journey in which we explore contemporary French cinema. Our itinerary will take us from the 1990s, those of “young French cinema” and neoclassicism, to the end of the 2010s, those of directors like Julie Delpy and Christophe Honoré. Together, we will develop a panorama in which the works of Cédric Klapisch and Nicole Garcia will intersect, as well as those of Céline Sciamma and Arnaud Desplechin.
The objective of this course will be to introduce students to French cinema, its history, and its diversity. We will also have the chance to correlate academic knowledge and practical experience, so as to give the students a significant idea of French film activity.
ENGLISH TRACK
MENA4100OC: Migration, Displacement and Diaspora in the French and North African Context, 3 credits
Instructor Madeleine Dobie, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Taught in English. This course counts as a Global Core Requirement at Columbia University.
This course examines the social, political and cultural history of migration in the Mediterranean, with a particular focus on France and Africa. We examine the forces that have underpinned migration in the nations of the Mediterranean rim since the 1950s and observe major transitions in policy and legal frameworks. Though migration is often treated in mainstream media as an object of policy and legislation, it is better approached as a ‘total social fact’ involving political, social, economic and cultural dimensions. With this in mind, we look at different media, genres and narrative forms in which migration has been represented and debated and grapple with questions about the relationship between lived experience and representation and between politics and the arts.
HIST3136OC: France and the African Diaspora, 3 credits
Instructor Frank Guridy, Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies
Taught in English. This course also counts as a Global Core Requirement at Columbia University.
This course explores France’s complex racialized colonial history by encouraging students to examine the ways the country helped constitute a racialized colonial empire and the ways it created the conditions the conditions to challenge it. The course encourages students to contemplate how France has figured into the creation of the African Diaspora and how diasporic movements for freedom have shaped France. The course will build upon the concept of vernacular landscapes to encourage students to examine how these histories are memorialized, or not, in France today. Topics to be explored will include: the impact of slavery on France, including its port cities including Nantes; the intertwined character of the French and Haitian Revolutions; the convergence of anti-colonial movements in Paris during the interwar period and beyond, and the experiences of Black expatriates in the country during the twentieth century. The course’s location at Reid Hall in Paris will give students ample opportunities to students to examine the reciprocal impact between France and decolonization and freedom movements.
CPLS3456OC: 1968 Paris, 3 credits
Instructor Bruno Bosteels, Dean of Humanities and Jesse and George Siegel Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
Taught in English. Pending approval by the Committee on Instruction (COI).
"1968" remains a watershed year in the history of worldwide struggles for liberation and emancipation. For many the last gasp of the revolutionary era, for others the beginning of a new regime of flexible control. The hypothesis for this seminar holds that "1968" matters for a thinking of the event in two essential ways: not only may we ask what happened but we also should ask how we can talk of the happening of an event in the first place. Alternating theoretical and fictional, historical and artistic, filmic and political materials, students will be expected to develop an original take on one aspect of the paradigm shift that affects the thinking of the events of “1968” during that exceptional month of May in Paris, while keeping a close eye on the national and international contexts behind the global sixties.
AHIS3682OC: Issues in Nineteenth Century Art, 3 credits
Instructor Nicolas Baudouin, Instructor in Art History
Taught in English.
In this course, we will focus on a key artistic period that is full of upheavals. We will particularly consider the affirmation of the individuality of the artist in relation to the institutions and great pictorial movements that have marked the history of French painting of that time.
ACADEMIC SCHEDULE
The Summer 2025 course offerings will continue to be updated in the next few weeks.
When selecting your courses, please make sure that the courses you choose are not in conflict with each other. In general, the program tries to avoid conflicts with courses.
GRADING POLICY
Click here for the Columbia summer program grading policies.
TRANSCRIPTS
Upon successful completion of the program, grades are entered into Columbia's online grading system.
Credit is not granted to students who do not complete the full program.
All courses taken on the program are converted to an American grading scale and transmitted to students as follows:
Columbia Students: Grades appear on SSOL and your transcript as semester grades from courses taken at Columbia. For more information, please see the section on Academic Credit in Steps to Study Abroad.
Barnard Students: Grades appear on eBear and your transcript as any semester grades from courses taken at Barnard. For more information, please see the section on Credit and Transcripts for Barnard Students on our Barnard student pages.
Non-Columbia Students: Can request electronic transcripts online through the Columbia University Registrar.
Life in Paris
HOUSING
Residence Hall: Students will live in single-furnished rooms with access to a private bathroom, shared kitchenette, and laundry facilities.
Studio-Style Apartment: Students will live in a furnished studio-style apartment with access to a private bathroom and their own kitchenette.
Homestay: Live with a francophone family and live like a true Parisian, off the beaten tourist path. Homestays are located throughout Paris and the nearby suburbs and never more than a short train ride from Reid Hall. You will have your own room and share common spaces with your host family and will share meals with them. Sharing meals in France is not only an excellent opportunity to practice your language skills but the chance to partake in an essential part of French culture. Living with a host family is a great way to experience firsthand the daily rhythm of French life, learn about Paris from an insider's perspective, and be immersed in a French-speaking environment.
DAILY LIVING AND SCHEDULE
Depending on the specific courses you take, you will have different commitments for work outside of class. Your commute to Reid Hall will also be between 35-50 minutes, on average. Weekends are free, and students are encouraged to enjoy Paris on the weekends.
The program has many course-related activities, as well as a few social events, that will help students engage with the cultural life of Paris. Past activities have included theater workshops, pottery, crépe-making, wine tasting, and excursions around Paris. You will have adequate time to explore Paris on your own and to soak up the ambiance of the city Paris in the summer. In addition, the Columbia Global Center | Paris has many activities throughout the summer that are open to students on the program at no charge.
LOCATION
The home base of Columbia University in Paris is the Columbia Global Centers | Paris at Reid Hall, where all of your classes will take place. Reid Hall is a small group of buildings owned and administered by Columbia. It also serves as an educational center for other American universities and for scholars from around the world. For more than a century, its long and distinguished past of intellectual, artistic, and cultural exchange has made it significant for the relationship between France and the United States.
Reid Hall, constructed in the early 18th century before the French Revolution, is located in the lively Montparnasse (6th arrondissement) district of Paris, near the Luxembourg Gardens and within walking distance of the Latin Quarter and several branches of the University of Paris. Modern additions have enlarged the facility, creating an interior courtyard and private garden. Reid Hall primarily houses administrative offices and classrooms and also has a small reference library, a reading room, lounges, a multimedia lab, and two large conference rooms. Students have access to WiFi in all common areas of Reid Hall.
People
Staff
The faculty and program are supported by the staff of the Columbia Undergraduate Programs in Paris and the Columbia Global Centers | Paris. You will be introduced to the Columbia Undergraduate Program staff during the orientation.
FACULTY
Please see individual courses for faculty links.
Financial Considerations
Summer 2025 Tuition and Fees*
Please see our cost breakdown for detailed information.
*Tuition and fees are subject to the Board of Trustees' approval and may change.
Financial Aid and Scholarships
If you receive financial aid during the academic year, you may remain eligible for financial aid when you attend a summer Columbia-Led Program as long as you take a minimum of 6 points.
CC/SEAS: Contact the CC/SEAS Financial Aid & Educational Planning to understand if any of your federal financial aid may cover enrollment costs for a summer program. Please note the Columbia Grant is not available for summer studies.
General Studies: Contact the GS Office of Educational Financing to understand if any of your financial aid may cover participation in a summer program.
GLOBAL LEARNING SCHOLARSHIP
The Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement (UGE) offers the Global Learning Scholarship (GLS) to support Columbia students so they may enhance their undergraduate education by participating in a summer global learning opportunity.
Eligibility:
You are eligible for the Global Learning Scholarships (GLS) if you are:
A Columbia College, Columbia Engineering, or General Studies student who demonstrates financial need
All other students are not eligible for the GLS
Application and Timeline:
Students apply for the Global Learning Scholarship (GLS) and the Columbia-Led summer program with two separate applications.
Scholarship applications are due: February 14th, 2025 (closes at 11:59 pm EST)
GLS applicants must also submit a completed program application by the program application deadline OR no later than the following: February 14th, 2025 (closes at 11:59 pm EST)
To apply to the Global Learning Scholarship, please click here.
OTHER SCHOLARSHIPS
For a list of other scholarships specific to study abroad, please visit the Scholarships for Study Abroad for more information. Of note are the:
Withdrawal Policy
To learn about the financial consequences of withdrawing from the program, please review the Summer Withdrawal and Refund Policy here.
Resources for Accepted Students
After being accepted to the program, we will share information and email communications regarding the next steps. We understand that there will be a lot of steps to complete, so please utilize the resources below to help you get started:
