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A Message from the Department Chair

The French language is the most direct route to 150,000,000 people in over 40 countries and territories of Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, and Latin America. If your goals include a future that requires contact with these diverse peoples or if your plan is to teach French, we offer a variety of options that will fit your needs: French/Business, French/ Engineering, French language & culture, French language and literature, applied French, and certification for teaching French in conjunction with the College of Education. Currently, a third of our 100 or so majors are combining French with a major in another field such as political science, journalism, English, finance, history, education, hotel and restaurant management, international studies, information sciences and technology, or a second language. Over 80 students have opted to add a minor in French to their degree programs. And over 1,200 students per semester take French courses to sharpen skills acquired in high school.

For more information, browse the related links on our Web page, drop by to visit us in 211 Burrowes, or send us an e-mail.

Thomas A. Hale, head
Department of French and Francophone Studies
E-mail: tah@psu.edu

A Message from the Director of Undergraduate Studies

The Department’s undergraduate program — one of the most vibrant in the U.S. — offers a unique variety of major options to suit any area of interest. Besides the traditional B.A. degrees in Language and Culture and Language and Literature, we grant more professionally oriented B.S. degrees in Applied French, French-Business, and French-Engineering. Both the B.A. and B.S. options work extremely well with concurrent majors. We are proud that our major courses are, for the most part, taught in small-class settings by full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty.

More than 50% of French and Francophone Studies majors study abroad for a summer, a semester, or a year. They find that this kind of immersion experience fosters not only linguistic fluency but also the poise, independence, cultural literacy, and self-confidence that recruiters look for in job candidates. Penn State currently sponsors French-speaking programs in France (Aix, Avignon, Besançon, Brest, Montpellier, Paris, Strasbourg), Belgium (Brussels), Canada (Québec), and Sénégal (Dakar). With proper planning, study abroad also permits concurrent majors in French to add the International Studies major for only one extra course (INTST 493).

Since all five French major options share the same set of core courses (FR 201, FR 202, FR 331, FR 332, FR 351, FR 352, and a class in French Linguistics), it is possible to switch from one specialization to another as your interests and goals evolve during your career at Penn State. It is, of course, important to declare your French major as early as possible in order to benefit from professional advising about course selection, study abroad, and career opportunities (and to have the major show up on your transcript — an advantage for those seeking summer jobs!). However, students returning from study abroad sometimes decide to change major options in order to pursue an exciting new career path discerned during their overseas experience.

Our graduates have gone on to law, business, or medical school; taught in France as Fulbright Scholars or on French government teaching assistantships; worked for the Peace Corps, Homeland Security, Christie’s auction house, world health organizations, and the non-profit sector; become high school teachers, university professors, and instructional designers; and gone into film, journalism, advertising, and information technology — among many other professions. This diversity of interests promotes a highly stimulating exchange in the classroom, and the Department faculty are delighted by the many ways that FFS majors find to apply their linguistic, cultural, and literary studies to their individual lives and objectives.

Kathryn M. Grossman, Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of French and Francophone Studies
E-mail: kmg2@psu.edu