Paris Study Abroad Curriculum

This course explores the often fraught and occasionally silly history of French-American relations, starting with Benjamin Franklin’s (in)famous stint as the first U.S. ambassador to France. Reading excerpts from Franklin’s Autobiography and his short essays, alongside modern commentary, we will see how Franklin gained French support for the American Revolution, while becoming an American cultural icon. Using Paris as a living archive, we will visit Versailles, where King Louis XVI received Franklin, and walk the streets of Passy, where Franklin lived and is still memorialized. We will also examine how the U.S. and France have borrowed from and bickered with each other over the more recent 250 years, from France’s embrace of American jazz in the 1920s to the “freedom fries” controversy of the early 2000s. Students will research an important figure or event in French-American relations and present it through lightning talks, digital maps, debates, and a research paper.

• Units: 4
• BU Hub areas:
  • Writing, Research, and Inquiry
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Oral and/or Signed Communication

Taught in English

This introductory course is open to all BU students and is the prerequisite for School of Hospitality courses. Students gain an historical perspective and identify current events and trends in lodging, restaurants and event management. It provides an overview of the global hospitality/tourism industry including the critical elements of managing services. The Paris market, multimedia assignments and team-based projects are integrated into the learning environment.

• Units: 4
• BU Hub areas:
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Teamwork/Collaboration

Intensive French course for beginners.

(If CAS LF 111, 112, or a more advanced college-level course has been completed, this course cannot be taken for credit.)

• Units: 4
• BU Hub areas:
  • Individual in Community

Recommended for students whose most recent French language course is a fourth- or fifth-semester equivalent

This course aims to refine students’ written and oral expression by improving their overall level of French (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation) with a special emphasis on better integrating them into their daily, academic or professional environments, through linguistic and cultural activities.

• Units: 4
• BU Hub areas:
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Oral and/or Signed Communication

Designed under the format of half visits and half in-class sessions, this course explores the history of “modernity” focusing on the principal art movements in Paris from 1850 to today, including painting, sculpture, photography, installations, and urbanism, in relation to the historical, economic, and sociocultural contexts of the time period, and its influence in other parts of the world.

• Units: 4
• BU Hub areas:
  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Historical Consciousness

Traces the development of Parisian architecture and urbanism, from the Roman era to the present, emphasizing dynamic relationships among architecture, urban development, and socio-political history.

• Units: 4
• BU Hub areas:
  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Critical Thinking

Central to the hospitality as well as other industries is the provision of memorable, high-quality customer experiences across digital and physical touchpoints. This allows organizations to turn satisfied customers into brand evangelists. This course introduces the emerging domain of customer experience management (CEM)–the discipline of understanding and managing customer interactions with the organization to improve satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy. CEM is a unique domain that draws on practices from the fields of marketing, marketing research, technology and data science, and operations and service science, with the aim of understanding and improving customer experiences with the organization. The course will will integrate the Paris business environment through numerous visits.

• Units: 4
• BU Hub areas:
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Creativity/Innovation