In the Foundation Program you make the critical transition from studying English as a language to studying for your degree in English. The credits you receive in this full-time semester-long program count towards university requirements for graduation. You experience the most distinctive part of an American liberal arts education: studying several types of subjects with professors who are specialists in their fields.
In the first semester you will take four courses.
You will have the choice of a FirstBridge course, which consists of two linked courses specially chosen for you from a wide variety of subject areas. This interdisciplinary learning experience will encourage you to approach the same questions in different ways, all while improving and practicing the language-based skills required for success in an American university.
Some FirstBridge courses available to EnglishBridge students are:
This course explores the ever more porous boundaries between computers and people. In an age where technology shows growingly human characteristics, and human behavior and thought are increasingly manipulated using machines, this FirstBridge course provides students with practical and critical skills to navigate the latest developments in the man-machine matrix. Tomer Libal’s classes will provide an introduction to key concepts in computational thought as well as establish students’ basic coding skills. Russell Williams’ classes will consider how forms of writing, including essays, poems, novels, Tweets and Facebook posts strive to articulate what is uniquely human. In the reflective seminar, students and professors will collaborate on a digital project, which seeks to practically interrogate the relationship between computing and literature and consider different attempts to digitalize different aspects of human thinking. Students will discuss, too, how contemporary thinkers and popular culture (including the TV series Black Mirror) articulate some of the pressing issues raised by the course. This FirstBridge course will, from computational and literary standpoints, stage a series of encounters between key concepts, such as ‘stories’, ‘structures’, ‘logic’, ‘thinking’, ‘creativity’, ‘knowledge’, ‘influence’, and ‘experimentation’.
Can machines think? This course investigates the core characteristics of the digital mind and will analyze it from different human perspectives like thinking, intelligence, imagination and ethics. The course will touch upon key concepts in the ways machine work such as programming, logic and artificial intelligence in order to better understand the benefits and risks found in machines, technology and bots which are an inseparable part of our modern lives.
The starting point of Professor Williams’ classes will be the written word. Using examples drawn from a wide range of literary texts, as well as essays, films, TV series and social media snippets, students will be encouraged to think deeply about reading and writing and, in particular, reflect on how they read and write. What does it mean to write when we spend so much of our life in front of a keyboard? What does it mean to read when our attention is so frequently under pressure from a range of sources? What does it mean to be human in a technological age?
This FirstBridge looks at how the human species sees itself and how we envision categories. How do the processes of science, art and history contribute to our understanding of who we are? How does our societal context influence what we do and how we see both the world and each other? How do our depictions of humans in their myriad environments shape our understanding of ourselves and others?
Given that there is only one human species, Homo sapiens, why are some societies so obsessed with separating people into groups and referring to differences between groups as “racial”? Humans have always identified some people as “Us” and everybody else as “Other,” but the “scientific” discourse of race dates from the 19th century. After briefly examining what science can say about the origins and evolution of our species, students will look at how racialized discourse came into use, how it came to justify slavery and imperialism, how it gave rise to eugenics, and how it can culminate in the ultimate denial of the kinship of humanity, genocide.
This studio art and design course provides an introduction to the basic ideas and techniques needed for the conception and construction of built environments as well as the depiction of the humans who inhabit and modify those environments. Starting with elemental drawing and design concerns, students will be asked to use what they learn to create progressively larger and more complex two- and three-dimensional works. Site-specific assignments making use of the city of Paris will oblige students to engage in a “conversation” with history and society.
EnglishBridge features exactly the same type of courses that all other new freshman take in their first semester at AUP. What makes EnglishBridge distinctive is that you will have more time with your professors to work through course material and to understand what you have to do to succeed in an American university environment.
In your first semester you will also take these two classes:
Prepares students to become proficient writers of academic English. Reviews grammar in the context of writing. Students learn the essential steps of writing, such as planning, organization, mechanics, word choice, style, and editing.
Provides an in-depth understanding of the grammar system of English through formal analysis of excerpts from a variety of sources including academic and non-academic texts and film. Covers fine points such as tense, time, aspect, register, voice, and idioms. Gives individualized feedback to help students focus on their particular needs. Although this course carries 4 Credits, it does not fulfill the University's English requirement.
In your second semester you take EN 0950 in combination with AUP courses that you will select with the help of your academic advisor. These can be courses that count for the major that you have in mind, other courses required for graduation, or simply courses in areas that attract your intellectual curiosity.
Formerly EN 001. Helps students develop greater sophistication, nuance, and style in writing academic papers in English. Allows students to practice all the phases of preparing and producing quality academic writing, including critical thinking, essay planning, outlining and organization, proofreading, editing, and rewriting. Although this course carries 6 credits, it does not fulfill the University's English requirement
Other classes to be chosen with the help of the student's advisor.
Since good, solid writing is so important to university study, AUP continues to provide support for developing this skill. All students at AUP, whatever their native languages, take writing courses, of which up to twenty credits altogether may be applied toward their degree.
To complete the English sequence for the general education requirement Speaking the World, you will take the following writing courses over the next three semesters. This sequence allows students to move into the level best adapted to their needs. You must continue taking English, passing each course with a minimum grade of “C,” until you have completed all levels.
Emphasizes the stages required to produce a polished, articulate essay by practicing the necessary components of excellent academic writing: sharpening critical thinking skills, organizing ideas, choosing appropriate and dynamic words, varying prose style, editing, refining, and proofreading. Although this course carries 4 credits, it does not fulfill the University's English requirement.
Emphasizes the stages required to produce a polished, articulate essay by practicing the necessary components of excellent academic writing: sharpening critical thinking skills, organizing ideas, choosing appropriate and dynamic words, varying prose style, editing, refining, and proofreading. Although this course carries 4 credits, it does not fulfill the University's English requirement.
Taught through thematically-linked works of literature from the Ancient world to the present day. Stresses expository writing, accurate expression, and logical organization of ideas in academic writing. Recent themes include: Childhood, Friendship from Aristotle to Derrida, Social Organization and Alienation, Monstrosity, and Music and Literature. This course satisfies only 4 credits of the University's English requirement.
A series of topic-centered courses refining the skills of academic essay writing, studying a wide range of ideas as expressed in diverse literary genres and periods. Introduces the analysis of literary texts and gives training in the writing of critical essays and research papers. Recent topics include: Utopia and Anti-Utopia, City as Metaphor, Portraits of Women, Culture Conflict, and Labyrinths.
General Contact
Undergraduate Students
Dominique Meys
dmeys@aup.edu
Tel: +33 1 40 62 06 71
David Bouchet
dbouchet@aup.edu
Tel: +33 1 40 62 06 60
Nicole Sugar
nsugar@aup.edu
Tel: +33 1 40 62 06 19
Pamela Montfort
pmontfort@aup.edu
Tel: +33 1 40 62 06 61
Office: PL11B
2 bis, Passage Landrieu,
75007 Paris, France
M,T,W,T,F: 09:00-17:00
Foundation Program Director
Linda Martz
lmartz@aup.edu
Tel. +33 1 40 62 07 19
FirstBridge Coordinator
Elizabeth Kinne
ekinne@aup.edu