Smith College's Junior Year in Paris program offers students a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live with a host family, take classes at French universities, and immerse themselves in Parisian life. The program is based out of Reid Hall, a consortium center owned by Columbia University, alongside other American study abroad programs. Smith students typically take some of their courses at Reid Hall and others at either Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris Cité, Sciences Po, or the École Nationale d'Architecture Paris Val de Seine. While not in class, students are free to explore Paris, get involved in cultural organisations around the city, and take advantage of the Smith program's cultural activities funds to attend films, museums, concerts, plays, and travel around the region. You only get out what you put in, but if you take advantage of everything Paris has to offer, you will find nearly unlimited opportunities to plunge yourself into the vibrant youth culture of the city and a true immersion experience that will challenge your French knowledge and push you towards fluency. The program offers so much more than just the opportunity to live in France's capital city. – 2023-2024 JYA Student

The most exhilarating aspect of directing the Paris program? Witnessing what happens when students are given real agency and autonomy over their academic and personal lives in a city that offers virtually unlimited possibilities.  For most of you, this will be the first time you will be treated as a fully independent adult—and will be expected to behave accordingly. This program offers you opportunity: to deepen your studies in your area of interest, to discover new intellectual passions, to hone your French language skills to a fine point, to experience daily life in a completely different culture, to reinvent yourself and reshape your future well beyond your college years. Whoever you are, whatever your interests, this is the program for you. – Rob Dorit, Academic Program Director