The next application deadline is Feb 21, 2025
See other program dates

This four-week intensive writing program is designed to push students forward in their creative work and to help them explore how the craft of writing is and can be folded into the outside world. Both courses will rely on site visits and excursions in the city of Paris to guide this exploration, inviting students to see how their work is always in dialogue with the places they pass through and how creativity might be a tool they can use in settings they may not have previously considered.

Program Overview

Students will take two 3-point courses on this program: What is Creative Writing For? Prose Writing in Paris with Nellie Hermann and Writing Through Art: Poetry in Paris with Dorothea Lasky.

The courses combine workshop and seminar formats, along with field trips, to help students reflect on writers and artists of the past, give and receive feedback on their creative writing in multiple genres, and begin to explore the ways that writing might play a role in culture beyond the writer’s solitary pursuit.

This four-week intensive program will take place from Wednesday, May 21st, 2025, to Thursday, June 19th, 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.

We encourage you to watch the Columbia Summer Creative Writing in Paris information session to learn more about the structure of the program and the application components:

Eligibility and Application

Eligibility

  • Currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students in good academic and disciplinary standing
  • Students should have experience in creative writing
  • Minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA. Students must also maintain a 3.0 GPA during the semester before going abroad

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 item(s)
  • Personal statement
  • Official transcript(s)
  • Writing sample of recent work (maximum 10 pages): The sample should demonstrate formal or informal experience in prose writing and/or poetry
  • 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

Students will take two 3-point courses on this program: What is Creative Writing For? Prose Writing in Paris with Nellie Hermann and Writing Through Art: Poetry in Paris with Dorothea Lasky.


WRIT3043OC: What is Creative Writing For? Prose Writing in Paris, 3 credits
Instructor Nellie Hermann, Adjunct Associate Professor, Barnard College; Core Faculty, Narrative Medicine; Creative Director, Columbia Narrative Medicine; Course Director, Narrative Medicine Certificate

This course will plot a journey through a series of themes designed to examine what creative writing might be for as an applied practice (not only as an art): how can the tools of creative work connect us more deeply to the world around us, and therefore potentially transform any other endeavor we take on? Throughout the month, we will write and read – each week will feature a few different texts (all of them by French writers or by writers who lived in Paris) which will form the background of the week’s work, and a particular piece of prose writing will be due at the end of that week. We will rely heavily on the city of Paris to be our teacher and guide in these various themes, and will involve the city in our explorations. In addition to the reading and generative exercises through each week, students will share one longer-form piece of writing with the group, and we will spend at least four class sessions workshopping these pieces as a group, with formal workshop letters due from students to underscore the attention they are giving to each other’s work.

This course counts toward the Medical Humanities Major at Columbia University.


WRIT3045OC: Writing Through Art: Poetry in Paris, 3 credits
Instructor Dorothea Lasky, Director of MFA in Poetry Program; Associate Professor of Writing, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

At least since the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos called "painting silent poetry and poetry painting that speaks," creative writing has existed in conversation with a variety of other art forms, particularly visual art. In this class, we will explore creative writing as an interdisciplinary practice, with an emphasis on the work of artists who create in both the visual and textual fields. Among other key critical questions, we will consider:

  1. How has an intersection with visual art been important to creative writing historically?

  2. How does visual experience relate to particular aspects of creative writing?

  3. How can we use visual art towards our own creative process in the future, either by using visual art in writing or by incorporating illustration in the presentation of our written work?

A mix of texts—classic and contemporary poetry and prose, illuminated manuscripts, children’s picturebooks, literature that we might consider visually-driven, and related scholarship—form the basis for our investigations, discussions, and creative work.

Note: The University reserves the right to withdraw or modify the courses of instruction or to change the instructors as may become necessary.


PROGRAM DATES

The program will be intensive and students should expect to devote much of their time to their classes, coursework, and attending the specially planned co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. A more detailed schedule will be provided at a later date.

InformationDate
Student Arrival and Housing Check-InWednesday, May 21st, 2025
OrientationThursday, May 22nd, 2025
First Day of ClassesFriday, May 23rd, 2025
Last Day of ClassesWednesday, June 18th, 2025
Student Departure and Housing Check-OutThursday, June 19th, 2025

All students are required to attend the orientation, which will provide an introduction to life in Paris and other important information. Program housing is not available outside of the program dates.


Grades and Transcripts

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:

Life in Paris

Housing

Students will live in single-furnished rooms with access to a private bathroom, shared kitchenette, and laundry facilities or in furnished studio-style apartments with their own kitchenette.

Housing is located with easy access to transportation and approximately a 30-minute commute (on the métro) from Columbia Global Centers | Paris at Reid Hall.


Daily Living and Schedule

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 social and cultural 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

Columbia Global Centers | Paris

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

Nellie Hermann, Adjunct Associate Professor, Barnard College; Core Faculty, Narrative Medicine; Creative Director, Columbia Narrative Medicine; Course Director, Narrative Medicine Certificate

Nellie Hermann, recipient of a 2016 NEA literature fellowship, is a co-author of Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2017). Her first novel, The Cure for Grief (Scribner, 2008), received national acclaim and was chosen as a Target “Breakout” book. Her short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, The Five Fingers Review, and Blunderbuss, and her nonfiction has appeared in an anthology about siblings, Freud’s Blind Spot (Free Press, 2010), The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Academic Medicine. Her second novel, The Season of Migration, about the early life of Vincent van Gogh (FSG: 2015), was an Editors' Choice by The New York Times.


Dorothea Lasky, Director of MFA in Poetry Program; Associate Professor of Writing, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Dorothea Lasky is the author of six books of poetry and prose: Animal (Wave Books, 2019), as well as ROME (W.W. Norton/Liveright), and Milk, Thunderbird, Black Life, and AWE, all out from Wave Books. She is also the author of several chapbooks, including Snakes (Tungsten Press) and Poetry is Not a Project (Ugly Duckling Presse). Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and Boston Review, among other places. She is the co-editor of Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry (McSweeney's) and is a Bagley Wright Lecturer on Poetry. She holds a doctorate in creativity and education from the University of Pennsylvania and has been educated at Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Washington University.

Financial Considerations

Summer 2025 Tuition & Fees*

Please see our cost breakdown for detailed information on additional estimated expenses.

*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.

Other students should contact their home school financial aid offices.

For more general information and resources on financing your time abroad, please see the pages below:


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: