IN 395 - Internship Seminar

This seminar aims to provide students with the theoretical tools and professional skills necessary to work effectively in a French professional setting. By developing students’ acumen in cultural analysis and interpretation, communication, problem-solving, and self-reflection, this seminar will help students to make the most out of their internship in France. Through readings and discussion, as well as exposure to the various tools specifically designed for analyzing work styles across cultures, this seminar will exercise students’ abilities to think critically about cultural values and practices helping them become more adept at managing cross-cultural interactions, and more effective at integrating into cultural professional environments.

The first half of the course focuses on cross-cultural awareness; specifically, it explores how social, economic, and political contexts within the host country affect cultural attitudes and values. Lessons encourage students to assess their own cultural profiles and levels of comfort with cultural difference and to perceive, contextualize, and analyze norms and values that influence French professional life (e.g., those impacting professional relationships, time management, conflict mediation, motivation, and professionalism). The second half of the class focuses on intercultural competence; it examines specific skills that help in the effective navigation of cultural difference (e.g., intercultural communication and teamwork) and helps students to assess their own aptitude in regard to these skills so they can better market their intercultural competence and international internship experience.