Studying a foreign language broadens your understanding of other cultures and opens the door to a variety of careers. Knowledge of a second language is a valuable asset; language fluency helps you qualify for many positions when it is combined with other marketable skills in business, economics, computer science, or political science.

Transylvania offers a French major and minor as well as a teaching major for K-12 certification. A French major allows you to study the French language and culture closely. The program offers courses in the literature, history, and civilization of France and French-speaking countries and regions in the world. Specialized courses include Business French, Francophone Literature, and French Cinema. Students may also take courses that focus solely on French grammar and conversation. Instruction in these courses is enhanced by a multi-media resource center with an extensive collection of audiocassette tapes, videotapes, CD-ROMs, and foreign newspapers and magazines. The resource center is equipped with a language lab that has listening stations, computers, printers, VCRs, and satellite TV capturing television and radio stations from all over the world.

Study and travel abroad strengthens students' knowledge of French language and culture. Transylvania strongly encourages its students to study abroad and has an active study abroad office on campus. Through special arrangements with other universities, students can spend a term or a year in France or other French-speaking countries.

Transylvania's May term, a one-month term during which students take one course, also provides a unique opportunity to study abroad. Thanks to this concentrated time, the term is well suited for study abroad experiences. For example, students recently studied in Paris for a May term course entitled Paris in Art and Literature. There are also extracurricular means to develop knowledge of the French language on campus, including residence in the International House, membership in the University's chapter of the national French honorary, and participation in the wide variety of activities organized by the French Club.

Some of the positions held by our French graduates:

Interpreter
High school French teacher
Graduate teaching assistant
Hotel/restaurant manager
International business professionals

Some of the graduate or professional schools our French students have attended:

University of Kentucky, Thunderbird-The American Graduate School of International Management, Oxford, Cambridge