PARSONS NEW SCHOOL OF DESIGN PARIS

PARSONS PARIS

NEW SCHOOL OF DESIGN

please visit blog posts April 21, 2014 and June 6, 2014

for original research

A cold, wet, rainy day for Paris in July but we managed easily on the Metro and was met outside by our admissions guide Arnaud, who was so lovely and inviting to the school.

The older building above is the school entrance which was a townhouse previously - spiral staircase and all!  This store front is a rotating exhibit of the students work, open to the public year round.  Since joining the New School, the Student Life Counselor, Edward, explained this is a brand new campus and that the school was only in it's second year this fall.  I didn't want to begin to explain that actually Parsons Paris is the first American fashion school to have an overseas campus.  That might have come off wrong since yes, The New School of Design is going into it's second year - but the fashion program is still Parsons.

Frank Parson expanded the NYC campus to Paris in 1921 - the first American school on foreign soil.

This being an American college, students graduate in 4 years of study and with an American Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree.  The course load is almost the exact same as the NYC school - Paris students don't have a mandatory course of urban New York.  Instead they do have projects that need to incorporate il de France in their work

The campus is SMALL!  Maybe six or eight classrooms.  The student body is small as well, which the staff at Parsons Paris prefer to the hugeness of their sister school in New York City.

But as you can see, the classrooms are a healthy size with lovely large windows for natural light.  There is a rooftop lounge terrace which I thought would be a great place for a student to take a break - turns out it's only for the staff!

The school is in a nice area of Paris, near the Paris Opera and not far from the Louvre

and they do offer "dorm" like housing.  Not in this prime real estate area!  About a 20 minute ride on the MetroWhich I found to be cleaner than I had imagined, not too stinky with pee, and efficient.  Navigating underground with several different lines can be a little daunting - we did just fine!  I would not have a problem with Mimi riding this on a daily basis.

Well, this concludes Mimi's 8 London and Paris schools in 10 days!

Sightseeing, eating, and packing is left for the rest of this trip.

Pam