Spanish and French majors at our small, private, Southern U.S. liberal arts institution must study abroad for an entire semester, yet students embark and return with widely disparate levels of language and intercultural learning. To more fully foster learning-laden semester-long study abroad experiences we changed the curriculum and now majors take a three-semester sequence of courses before they leave, while abroad, and upon return. In this pilot study we assessed students' intercultural competency using the Intercultural Development Inventory both pre- and post-study abroad experience. We also used their assignments to triangulate and contextualize the IDI scores. As a result of the data, we contend that intercultural learning a) must be scaffolded and supported throughout the entire language, cultures, and literatures curricula, and b) any results on indirect standardized scales need to be compared with direct assessments. Based on the data, we revised the three-course sequence to help students process their intercultural journey. Given the nature of the changing international education landscape, some implications, beyond our department, of the small pilot study are also provided.