• First-Year Study

    Students seen from above gather around a classroom table to display booklets made to document their projects for an entrepreneurial design course
    A student demonstrates her multimedia project, wearing a piece of wearable technology and standing before a monitor that captures her movements on screen.
    Students in a first-year course are shown working together on a Parisian green roof, taking scoops of soil for a garden seen behind them.

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  • Explore Our Community

    What our students, alumni, and faculty are doing in Paris and worldwide

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    Program Contacts
    Emmanuel Cohen and Francesca Bonesio, Program Directors

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  • Your first year at Parsons Paris is a period of interdisciplinary exploration that prepares you to thrive in a rapidly evolving creative landscape. Immerse yourself in a broad range of art and design concepts, skills, and critical practices to become a flexible thinker, proficient maker, and bold experimenter. The curriculum serves as the first-year course of study for all bachelor's degree programs at Parsons Paris and provides a strong and versatile foundation for your creative and intellectual development.

    Program Highlights

    • Framework for Success

      Gain broadly relevant art and design concepts, tools, and methods—including 2D and 3D processes, drawing, and digital design—along with liberal arts capacities and insights to explore your passions and undertake a range of projects.

    • Applied Design Thinking

      Develop design thinking skills across art, design, fashion and theory, and build a solid foundation to become socially engaged designers using Tech Lab facilities to experiment and prototype.

    • Shared Learning

      Study art, design, and strategic processes with fellow international students in small classes where collaboration and shared learning, experimentation, and disciplinary and cultural cross-pollination are nurtured.

    • Paris As a Lab

      Immerse yourself in Paris’ unique blend of heritage and innovation, which results from the city’s many art centers, fashion houses, and other resources along with its celebrated cosmopolitan lifestyle, culture, and language. 

    • Future Success

      Keep your professional options open by exploring outside of traditional disciplines. Classes in the first year bring everyone together to develop creativity and problem-solving skills across fields.

    • Professional Resources

      Learn from academics and professionals who actively contribute to the Parisian and international scenes. Benefit from Career Development and the Parsons Paris community to intern and discover new opportunities in art, fashion, and strategic design.

  • Curriculum

    The first-year curriculum provides a common experience for all incoming Parsons Paris students, focusing on critically engaged approaches to art, design, and strategic thinking. Art, Media & Technology BFA and Fashion Design BFA students complete the same set of core courses, except for one Program Elective studio tailored for their specific needs. BBA students in Strategic Design and Management follow a similar curriculum that is supplemented by several management-related courses. In addition, all students take intensive creative workshops that help them acquire technical skills in preparation for their sophomore year.

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  • Parsons Paris faculty represent a broad range of expertise and are acknowledged as leading practitioners and scholars in their fields.

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      • Take The Next Step

      Submit your application

      Undergraduates

      To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

      Undergraduate Adult Learners

      To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

      Graduates

      To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.