Program Details

Spend your first semester of college in London, one the world's most dynamic global cities. Join a select group of St. Lawrence's class of 2017 for a semester-long liberal arts program at the site of the University's long-standing London Semester Program. Participants will complete their First-Year Program (FYP) and three additional courses in one of the world's most diverse and exciting locations.

Through this program, students who view global engagement as an important goal of their education will be able to take advantage of St. Lawrence's tradition of excellence in this area from the very start of their college career. At the same time, students will receive the benefit of St. Lawrence's celebrated First-Year Program, nationally recognized for its success in helping students excel in their first year of college life.  All of the courses on this program will use the city as their classroom, encouraging students to understand the subjects they study by immersing themselves in the history, culture, and life of London.

The living-learning residential college is at the center of St. Lawrence's First-Year Program. Students selected for this program will live together in central London with mentoring from a Community Assistant and FYP faculty, and many lifelong friendships will begin here. As with the FYP on-campus, students will share a course that acts as an introduction to the liberal arts with a focus on the development of critical thinking and communication skills as part of a living-learning community. Thus, students selected for the FYP in London will enjoy all of the benefits of the FYP on campus but in one of the world's most globalized cities, for a truly unique and remarkable FYP experience.

St. Lawrence's First-Year Program focuses on developing the writing, speaking, and research skills that students will need during and after college, and the FYP professor becomes the student's academic advisor. While on-campus FYP courses typically have multiple instructors, the London FYP will have one instructor, Dr. Cynthia Bansak, a faculty member in St. Lawrence's Department of Economics. Dr. Bansak has taught in the First Year Program on campus, has been the long-time Faculty Coordinator of the Washington, D.C. program and recently led a student trip to Nepal.  Her current research explores aspects of poverty alleviation programs in the U.S. such as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) and the impact of remittances on educational attainment in Nepal.  In London Dr. Bansak's  FYP course will be,  The Hogwarts School of Finance: British Children's Literature and links to Economic Concepts.  (For a full course description please see the Academics page.)

In addition to the First Year Program course, students will take electives taught by professors from British universities exclusively for St. Lawrence students, in fields such as Theater, Art and Architecture, Government, and History. All courses offered on this program are designed to immerse students in the city and its resources: attending live theater productions and meeting actors and directors, visiting historical sites and halls of government, visiting London's renowned art galleries, exploring culturally diverse neighborhoods, and so much more.

The Program also includes field trips to many sites in London and opportunities to travel elsewhere in the UK and Europe.

For further information, please follow the links on this page or contact the St. Lawrence Office of International and Intercultural Studies at 315-229-5991 or CIIS@stlawu.edu