The European Workplace as a Learning Space
| IFE’s Field Study and Internship programs turn the European professional workplace into an effective learning space, a broad interface with another culture whereby students become fluent in French, deeply familiar with contemporary European society(ies), and more knowledgeable in their chosen field of study or work, gaining both know-how and comparative knowledge. |
The success of IFE’s Field Study and Internship model can be traced to one clear, foundational concept: an internship in another culture is significantly, qualitatively different from a home-culture internship. A cross-culture internship differs in both the objectives for such an exercise as well as the techniques for ensuring the success of each student-intern.
IFE’s approach turns the professional workplace into a learning space, an interface with another culture, for purposes of language fluency, real cultural understanding, and the acquisition of comparative knowledge in a chosen field.
Using the workplace as an interface for inter-cultural education and ensuring a strong positive experience for each student requires a highly-structured approach that is attentive to detail. IFE’s experience and know-how come from developing, operating and observing the results of such an approach for over twenty years.
In its attention to detail, IFE works with potential applicants to help them decide if an IFE program is the right one for them and if so what is the optimum use of this type of program for their particular case. In general, IFE advises students to implicate the IFE semester as fully as possible with their overall academic program. This is the beginning of the individualized placement strategy that is the core of the IFE approach.
IFE programs are a three-stage adventure, beginning with thorough training, continuing into the internship period when well-prepared students participate in a working team of European professionals in their chosen field and culminating in a research project carried out with the help of an IFE research advisor. As an educational organization, IFE ensures each student’s success through a framework of program structure, support, contact and advising.
IFE maintains a program size that is in accordance with its goals. The most heavily enrolled program, Paris, operates with less than 30 students.
