Within Paris

As a student on the program, you’ll receive a pass to the Louvre and the Pompidou Center that will give you unlimited access to the museum’s collections, as well as reduced admission to its films, lectures and performances. You’ll also receive a French student card, which will admit you to university libraries and restaurants—and provide discounted rates on concert, film, theatre and travel tickets. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France will enable you to attend exhibitions, conferences, symposia, and musical events at France’s most prestigious library.

Thorough integration

To bring you into close contact with French society, the program sponsors events and activities, such as gatherings with French students, linguistic partnerships, dinners with Sarah Lawrence alumni living in Paris, volunteer work and teaching in French schools. Visits to schools and suburbs of varying economic backgrounds with issues from poverty to immigration law, as well as trips to European economic organizations, will give you insight into some of the domestic and international concerns of France today.

"The time I’ve spent in Paris has transformed the question of 'culture' from something I had read a lot about to something I am surrounded by all the time."
—Participant, Harvard University

Beyond Paris, Trips and Lectures

Field trips and excursions within Paris, into the French countryside and to numerous cities and towns complement your experience throughout the academic year. During orientation, you’ll spend four days in Provence and the Côte d’Azur, led by the program’s art historian. As you sample the cultural life of the French Riviera—preferred home of major artists including Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Picasso and Cézanne—you’ll also tour the cities of Arles, Aix-en-Provence, Saint Tropez, Antibes and Nice, occasionally staying at some of the oldest abbeys in the region. Additional excursions during orientation have included trips to Versailles, The Pompidou Center and many other cultural treasures in and around Paris. Beyond orientation, day trips to such destinations as The Cathedral of Chartes, Musée Rodin and The Orsay Museum help students establish links between their course work and French art and architecture. And a weekend in Normandy includes chateau tours, a coastal trip, and tours of Rouen and the ancient medieval town of Honfleur.

Recent day trips

• Château de Maintenon
• Château de Fontainebleau
• Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte
• Musée du Louvre
• Musée Picasso
• Musée du Prieuré de St-Germain-en-Laye
• Musée National d’Art Moderne
• Musée Maillol
• Musée Delacroix
• Quartier du Marai
• Le Cinéma à Paris
• Forum des Image
• Grandes Eaux Musicales de Versailles
• Les Journées du Patrimoine
• Photography Exhibits
• Promenade en Batea Mouche
• Promenade Littéraire
• Quartier Montparnasse

Recent orientation excursion sites

• Le Sainte-Chapelle
• The Pompidou Center
• Musée National d’Art
• Moderne Atelier d’Artistes de Montmartre à Montparnasse
• Musée du Prieuré de St.-Germain-en-Laye
• Bibliotheque Sainte-Geneviève
• Exposition: Gauguin à Tahiti
• Exposition: Paris, Capitale de l’Amérique
• Excursion en Normandie
• Les Grandes Eaux Musicales de Versailles
• Musée Delacroix et École des Beaux-Arts de Paris

Recent orientation lecture topics

• Les Collections d’art à Paris
• La Constitution des partis politiques en France
• La France et la CEE
• L’Emigration en France
• Les Origines intellectuelles de la communauté juive à Paris
• Le Système de l’éducation en France

"You cannot create experience. You must undergo it."
— Albert Camus, French-Algerian novelist,
dramatist, journalist and Nobel laureate