<p>Students or parents - has anyone attended this program? </p>
<p>Davidson College- Study Abroad Program in Tours, France</p>
<p>The Davidson Tours program is in conjuntion with Bucknell. My daughter is at Bucknell and will be doing the Tours program this upcoming fall semester (side note: my son graduated from Davidson and my daughter was accepted at Davidson, but selected Bucknell, so she's looking forward to meeting up with Davidson students in Tours). My knowledge of the Tours program is from Bucknell's communication, but I'm sure it describes the experience for all. The students at BU who've done the Tours program describe it as life-changing. My daughter is very excited, particularly with the opportunity to live with a French family and gain a "total immersion" experience. If you're interested in learning more, I can ask my son if any of his friends did Tours and/or put you in touch with my daughter, who has friends who've done Tours through Bucknell. Good luck!</p>
<p>Here is the link from the Davidson Web site; it actually does not say anything about Bucknell. I have the impression that it is a program of the Rusk International Studies program at Davidson and is open to quLIFIED students at other colleges. In any case, it sounds wonderful.</p>
<p>The programs were developed jointly many years ago (as well as a third college whose name I don't recall), although operated under each school's sponsorship. They are identical programs, involving a month of intensive language instruction at the outset, followed by enrollment in regular classes at the Universite Francois Rabelais, plus classes taught by the specific college's (Bucknell's or Davidson's) professor-in-residence at the Institut de Touraine. In both schools' cases, the students are housed with a French family and are expected to be fully assimilated into French language and culture. At least for Bucknell's program, since it is a specific school-sponsored and taught program, the students not only get credit for courses taken, but their grades also count toward their GPA (a circumstance that tends to weed out the casual study-abroaders). The goal is a total immersion experience and apparently the students rave about it.</p>