Undergraduate

We want you to have the best of the theoretical and the practical. AUP’s tools, resources, and networks will help you develop your critical thinking and innovative problem-solving skills, so that you can follow your passions and create positive change in an increasingly globalized and international world. Our undergraduate degree programs are based on the American model, where you can explore and choose from a multitude of academic disciplines in small classrooms of peers from around the world. Your classroom work will be applied to real-world situations in a range of local and continental settings from Parisian museums to the Medina of Fez to the halls of the European Parliament in Brussels.  

At AUP, we believe in the American pedagogical model of the liberal arts curriculum, which has you sample a broad array of courses in different academic disciplines before making a final decision on your area of specialization, or major. The purpose of a liberal arts education is precisely to expose you to the big questions that only a broad sampling of courses can provide. You should come to AUP prepared to be changed by the transformative power of our liberal arts curriculum as much as by the demographic diversity of the students and scholars that make up our university community.  

Your undergraduate program at AUP consists of three components divided approximately into a third of your courses for each component: one third that satisfy general education requirements, another third of courses that satisfy your major requirements, and the remaining courses that you choose (electives).

In the following videos, you will meet AUP students and alumni, and see that there’s no such thing as the “typical” AUP student. Our students hail from big cities, small farms, countries you’ve never heard of, islands you’ve always meant to visit; they arrive at AUP knowing exactly what they want to study, having no idea what they want to study, thinking they know before being compelled towards something completely new; they go on to graduate school, to volunteer, to give back to their nations, to lead, to explore. These are their stories; we can’t wait to hear yours.

There is literally nothing like the undergraduate experience at AUP. You’ll learn from professors whose passion for their subjects is matched only by their enthusiasm for teaching: they will act as your mentors as you collaborate on projects both in and out of the classroom. Your classmates will come from every corner of the globe and bring with them a diverse—and sometimes challenging—array of experience and perspective. Paris, Europe and beyond will be your classroom, your laboratory, your source of (endless) entertainment, and your home.

We are unbelievably proud of our alumni, who have come to us from all over the globe. For some, coming to AUP was the first time they’d stepped foot out of their hometowns; for others, Paris marked the 18th city they’d lived in since birth. Some arrived speaking one language and left speaking five; others arrived speaking five and are now inching towards seven. Some knew what they wanted to study, some didn’t, others are still figuring it out in graduate school. Take a look at their first-person accounts below, as they describe their journeys to, through, and from AUP. We hope you’re just as inspired by them as we are.