Study Abroad

For application deadlines, please contact the International Studies Office .

STUDY ABROAD

The French Department encourages students at the 3000 level and above to seek the linguistic, intellectual, and personal benefits that can be obtained only from a well-planned period of study in a French-speaking country.

Choosing a Program

Students may wish to consider the UVA program in Lyon (which students can attend for a summer, a semester, or an entire academic year) and the UVA program in Morocco (which is offered only in the summer), as well as other programs organized by accredited American colleges. These, as a rule, surpass private agency offerings in terms of economy, administrative responsibility, and the quality and diversity of their course offerings. Highly-rated collegiate programs, other than those directly sponsored by the University of Virginia, include those of Hamilton, Sweet Briar, Middlebury, and Bryn Mawr. The French-language Field Study and Internship Programs in Paris, Strasbourg or Brussels (through IFE, also known as “Internships in Francophone Europe”) are excellent choices for highly motivated students who wish to spend a semester in one of these cities. The Paris and Brussels programs are accredited through Franklin and Marshall College and the Strasbourg program through the BCA Consortium.

Students are urged to consult with a departmental Study-Abroad Advisor about the factors involved in choosing a program and then to seek further details by scheduling an appointment with an Education Abroad Advisor in the International Studies Office and visiting the Study Abroad Library on the second floor of Minor Hall. Student evaluations of programs are an excellent resource and program brochures provide very specific information concerning entrance requirements, academic calendars, courses, language(s) of instruction, housing arrangements, travel opportunities, costs, and availability of financial aid (in the form of scholarships, grants, and loans). Since costs fluctuate in response to inflation as well as the shifting value of the dollar, and because different programs interpret the term "comprehensive fee" in radically different ways, students must exercise caution in estimating expenses. The International Studies Office has a cost estimate worksheet, at www.studyabroad.virginia.edu, to help students plan for expenses.

Drawing Up a Course of Study

Once admitted to a program, students will make a tentative selection of courses they plan to take. The following principles should guide their choices:

1. For graduation or major credit, a course taken abroad may not duplicate the course already completed at or accepted for transfer credit by the University of Virginia. If, for example, a student has already taken FREN 3043 (“Literature of the Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-First Century”) or its equivalent, a foreign-program course designated "Survey of 19th and 20th Century" should be avoided. However, the student could take another course on 19th century French literature if the content were markedly different or a survey of either 19th or 20th century literature. Please note that in such cases, the student must bring back clear documentation to demonstrate that the foreign-program course did not duplicate the content of the previous course in order to obtain credit for it.

2. Credit should be awarded in units of at least three semester hours to prevent a deficiency on application for the B. A. degree.

3. In courses selected to satisfy departmental requirements, only three areas are permitted: French language, literature, and civilization.

4. Internships in France or a Francophone country are eligible for major and minor credit (normally three hours of 4000T), within the hour limits already established for the transfer of foreign study credit, provided that: (1) students receive prior approval from a Study-Abroad Advisor in the French Department; and (2) returning students submit an acceptable written report, or project journal, in French (fifteen pages minimum ) to their foreign study advisor, indicating how the internship provided them with insights into the institutional culture of the host country.

The College of Arts & Sciences and the French Department require that French civilization studies or "cultural studies" courses be interdisciplinary in nature; that is, they must involve two or more areas of either the humanities or of the social sciences or they must combine an area in the humanities with one of the social sciences. It is the student's responsibility to provide sufficient evidence of interdisciplinarity (syllabi, reading lists, term papers, etc.), so that the departmental foreign study advisor may decide whether to apply such credit to the French major or minor.

Some students make the mistake of thinking that any course taught in French should count toward the French major.  To understand why this is not so, consider taking a course taught in English in the U.K. and requesting to transfer the credits towards an English major at the University.  If the course is on Renaissance poetry, Restoration theatre, or British journalism, and so forth, you might very well be able to transfer the credit.  But if the course is on sanitation, electoral politics, painting, or sociology, it would not transfer towards the English major.  Likewise in French.  These courses would not transfer to a French major: the history of World-War II; French Renaissance architecture; the philosophy of Bergson;  Romantic music.  The following probably would: the Romantic artist in literature; French Renaissance Civilization: painting, poetry, and politics; Bergson as writer.  When seeking transfer credit under the heading “French Civilization,” remember that the course must be multi-disciplinary in content for it to count as “civilization.”  So a course in French music would not count, but a course on poetry (lyrics) and music could count.

To request to transfer credit from study abroad so that it will count towards the French major at UVA you should print and fill out and bring to the French Department office the
College of Arts and Sciences Study Abroad Course Approval Form (http://www.virginia.edu/deallc/documents/StudyAbroadCourseApprovalForm.pdf). This form should be accompanied by complete course descriptions for the courses you wish approved.  Major credit is given for courses comparable to those offered by the UVA Department of French.  These include courses in French language, French and other francophone literatures and film, and French and francophone civilization.  If the courses you plan to take and to transfer to the major include any in this last category (French and francophone civilization), you must also fill out the French and Francophone Civilization Course Approval Form (.pdf, 63KB). Once the Department has considered your request, you will receive an e-mail telling you that your CLAS Study Abroad Course Approval Form signed by the Director of Undergraduate Studies is available to be picked up.  You should take this form to the Transfer Credit Evaluator, Ms. Gloria Gates, in Monroe Hall, and file it with her prior to departing for your study abroad.

Formalities

Your first step in preparing to study abroad is to complete the International Studies Office’s online Education Abroad Workshop, which is designed to give you the big picture of how study abroad works at UVA.  This workshop prompts you to consider your academic and personal goals.  It also explains how financial aid works when you study abroad, important facts about how credit is transferred back to UVA, how to schedule an appointment with an advisor, and many other important topics.

Once you have completed the workshop, you can schedule an appointment with an Education Abroad Advisor and open an application to study abroad. 

Note that students who plan to study abroad must meet the University’s eligibility requirements and have their courses pre-approved by their department.

Please visit www.studyabroad.virginia.edu for more information.