Paris Internships

Valuable summer work experience in the French capital

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Internships

Broaden your knowledge of the French business world, perfect language skills, and enhance your résumé with a true multicultural experience in France.

Internship placements are thoughtfully organized for a mutually beneficial experience for both student and establishment. APA and our preferred internship placement vendors work with all types of public, para-public and private organizations such as firms, agencies, government ministries, cultural organizations, political groups, media organizations, not-for-profit organizations, foundations, research institutes and think tanks.

Internships are unpaid, full-time (35-40 hours per week), and take place in a French language work environment. Generally, placements may be more research-oriented or more of a practitioner-type position, a distinction taken into account in the individual placement strategy worked out with each student.

Influence Your Future Career Path

Develop clear goals and objectives for your internship and later, unpack your work experience and leverage it in résumés, interviews, and future positions.

Before the Internship

To achieve your goals for the internship experience, use one-on-one meetings with an APA or preferred vendor mentor to refine the type of placement you prefer and outline your objectives. This time will also be used to prepare you for the French and European work environment.

During the Internship

Using various writing prompts, document, analyze, and reflect on your role throughout the experience. These assignments will be compiled into a report as a final evaluation of the internship.

Your mentor will stay in regular contact with you and arrange on-site workplace visits.

After the Internship

At the conclusion of the internship, each student will receive an official report that will take into consideration the final evaluation of the internship by the on-site manager, an evaluation by the mentor, and a grade for the written reports.

Recent Internships

Internship placements are made according to a student’s academic and work background and professional goals. Fields like international relations, medical research, communications, government departments, and non-profit organizations have all welcomed student-interns. Past placements have included:

  • Providing legal assistance to illegal immigrants
  • Developing activities for an event agency
  • Managing social media networks in the tourism industry
  • Teaching a class at an elementary school
  • Assisting a museum curator
  • Working on projects at the intellectual property office of a French luxury company
  • Producing film with the production director at a French animation company
  • Overseeing administrative tasks at a web-based video and music distribution company
  • Providing social work in an NGO to host and train refugees and asylum seekers

 

Take a closer look at recent student-intern experiences:

Helena: Conducting research in a scientific laboratory

Name: Helena

Home Institution: Sewanee: The University of the South

Major: French and French Studies

Minor: Chemistry

Internship Year: 2017

Where did you work? L’Hôpital Georges Pompidou

What tasks/projects did you have? I was assigned laboratory duties and tasks relating to the research projects of my lab team. These were all related either to A – preparation of plasmids for use in vector cloning (to be used in studies related to vascular pathologies), or B – to studying embryonic vessel development (angiogenesis, my lab team’s primary research interest), including isolation and analysis of key proteins in angiogenesis signaling pathways as well as mapping the concentration ratios of the key angiogenesis genes in different major human umbilical vein/artery cell types. I was taught the necessary protocols before being allowed to continue on my own with a considerable amount of autonomy, but help was always available if I needed it.

How did a semester in Paris prepare you for the internship? It prepared me primarily by vastly improving my French, as my internship was entirely in French. I didn’t encounter any significant barriers posed by language during my internship and by the end of the summer, my French had become much more fluid and comfortable. The familiarity with Paris that my semester with APA allowed me, too, made the transition into my internship smooth and comfortable.

Did this experience influence your future academic and/or career plans? How? Yes! It actually made me realize that while medical school is still my goal, I really want to incorporate research as an integral part of my medical career. I am presently applying to medical school and looking for schools where I could have opportunities to get involved in campus research facilities.

Ellen: Assisting production at a French-Arabic radio station

Name: Ellen

Home Institution: The George Washington University

Major: International Affairs

Minors: Dance & French

Internship Year: 2018

Where did you work? Radio Orient a French-Arabic News radio station

What tasks/projects did you have? While I was originally told I would be an assistant to the journalists, what that entailed was really being a journalist. I would go to different events or organizations around the city and find people to interview. I also did interviews over the phone and edited interviews to be ready to air.

How did a semester in Paris prepare you for the internship? Since my French skills had improved over the semester, I definitely felt more prepared than if I had not been there for a whole semester before. I also felt more comfortable getting around the city after having been here for a while.

What did you learn while on your internship? Over the course of the internship I learned how to conduct interviews in French and operate sound and recording equipment. I think I learned even more soft skills. I learned how to communicate with varieties of people and problem solving skills when I would be out on interviews on my own.

Advice for future student-interns: Do not be afraid to ask any questions. I learned a lot more when I did and connected more to the people I worked with. There will be difficulties over the course of the internship but after doing it you’ll feel like you can do any job.

Camille: Locating transgenes in a cell biology lab

Name: Camille

Institution: Franklin & Marshall College

Major(s): Biology and French

Internship Year: 2019

Where did you work? Institut Curie

What tasks/projects did you have? I worked in a melanoma research lab, and I was tasked with working on a project to locate transgenes in mice using PCR. Editor’s note: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technique used to copy portions of DNA for analysis. Source

How did a semester in Paris prepare you for the internship? After my semester in Paris, I felt way more confident in my French speaking, which was incredibly helpful for my internship. While we had lab meetings in English, the majority of my interactions with my co-workers were in French, and having already been speaking French over the course of the semester I felt much more comfortable speaking with them.

What did you learn while on your internship? Since I had never worked in a cell biology lab before, I learned how to do PCR, and I got to learn how to work in cell culture. I also was able to see the differences in working for an American lab and working for a French lab.

Did this experience influence your future academic and/or career plans? How? I am still figuring out exactly what I would like to be doing after college, but I know it will be in the scientific realm, so it was great to be able to see what it would be like if I were to continue to work in a cell biology lab. It definitely helped to confirm my interest in cancer biology.

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