As preparation for the one-year, senior I.S. experience, junior majors familiarize themselves with the resources useful in research in Francophone language, civilization, and literature and complete an independent project, often a paper on a cultural or literary topic or a translation. With the guidance of a faculty member, all seniors complete a project which normally culminates in a paper, written in French, on some aspect of language, literature, or culture. It is not unusual for students who study and travel abroad to develop interests that are later explored in depth in their senior I.S. projects.

Recent I.S. projects, for example, include an examination of the problems facing North African immigrants in France; studies of the cinematic work of Cyril Collard, LucBesson, and Krzwsztof Klieslowski; a translation of a text by Marie Cardinal; a study of the Napoleonic myth in literature and history; a proposal for a multicultural French program using francophone texts of the Caribbean; an examination of the privatization of Airbus; and a comparative study of bilingual education in France and the United States.