In today’s global world, it is no longer enough to travel and study in another country. Employers and graduate schools want to know that you have successfully navigated another culture, that you have the skills to work in a multicultural environment, and that you have gone beyond academic tourism.
Set Yourself Apart
Exclusive to IFSA and a distinguishing feature of every program, our C&C course and community engagement philosophy will help deepen your understanding of your host community and our greater global society.
What C&C Offers You
Experience your host city in a way most visitors never can. The C&C course is designed to take study abroad to another level.
Get More Out of Study Abroad
Using your host city as your laboratory, C&C will help make an unfamiliar place more familiar. Get a behind-the-scenes look at your city that you could never learn in a classroom or see on a tour bus.
Our programs in Mérida, Mexico and Valparaíso, Chile offer an in-person C&C course worth 3 U.S semester credits. The course is embedded in some programs and optional in others. The on-site course syllabi are listed below:
Our online C&C course, Exploring Community & Culture™ in a Global Context, is available in all IFSA locations around the world except where we teach the class in person. Worth 3 U.S. semester credits, this course fosters intercultural dialogue and a greater understanding of local society through a cohort of IFSA students studying around the globe. While you are learning more about your host culture, you’ll have the opportunity to compare and contrast your experience with those of students in other parts of the world, further expanding your cultural awareness.
Several faculty are involved in delivering the Exploring Community & Culture™ course, depending on the semester and enrollment.
Sharna Bremner is a Senior Student Services Coordinator for IFSA programs in Adelaide, Australia. She is currently undertaking her doctoral degree in International Development at the University of Adelaide and holds a Bachelor of Development Studies (Honours) from the same institution. Her research is focused on the intersections of health and education policy in post-conflict developing countries and her publications include The World Bank’s Health Projects in Timor Leste: The Political Economy of Effective Aid (Rosser & Bremner, 2015). Sharna assisted in the development of the curriculum for the Exploring Australia: Community & Culture course and has served as the course coordinator and instructor since its inception in 2016. Sharna has assisted more than 1,500 IFSA students in her years as a Student Services Coordinator, and her daily activities include the provision of academic and personal support to students, curriculum development for the Exploring Australia: Community & Culture course, and engagement with partner and host universities. She is excited to bring her knowledge and experience to the faculty role with Exploring Community & Culture in a Global Context.
Dr. Francisco Fernández-Repetto has been involved in the development and creation of the Exploring Yucatán: Community & Culture, having collaborated in the development, training, and implementation of C&C courses for several IFSA program locations, and supported other IFSA initiatives regarding C&C perspective around the world. Francisco is a Full Professor of Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY), where he teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He belongs to the prestigious National System of Researchers and is currently involved in student advising and directing research projects, thesis, and dissertations.
Francisco holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Florida, Gainesville, an Master’s in Sociology from the Autonomous Benito Juárez University in Oaxaca, and a Bachelor’s of Art in Social Anthropology from the UADY, where he has been a professor for more than 30 years. His research interests span from popular religion to anthropology of higher education, visual anthropology, and anthropology of tourism. He has been actively publishing in those areas as well as attending numerous conferences. Recently, he has been teaching different courses from anthropological theory to monographic courses related to the Yucatán.
Why is C&C such an important component of study abroad?
MAKE FRIENDS, EVEN BEFORE LEAVING HOME: If you’re wondering how and if you will make friends and how you might settle in to your new home, here’s the place where you can begin to get to know the other students who will be with you.
GET INVOLVED: C&C will challenge you to truly become a part of your host community, be it through living with a host family and attending classes at a local university, participating in an internship, community-based learning, or volunteer opportunity, or simply exploring your day-to-day experiences more deeply.
BOOST YOUR RESUME: C&C will help you learn how to market your study abroad experience to prospective graduate programs or employers. You’ll be able to show how you used the time to your best advantage and what you learned from your study abroad experience that makes you the better candidate.
IT’S FUN! If you just want to have a good time while you’re studying abroad, we’ve heard from returning students that one of the best ways to do that is to get involved with local student clubs, sports teams, or special interest groups. C&C will help you do just that!
“We were able to discuss current issues while bringing information from our classes to the table. My friend from college was in another study abroad program and she was jealous because they didn’t have a C&C.”
“C&C is a project-based, crash course of the dynamic and lively facets of the Irish culture as well as the reflection of one’s own. It is two hours a week spent delving into topics most certainly forgotten by a typical study abroad student, and there would have been a void in my experience without it.”
“The lectures and readings provided us with extra tools to be able to adapt to life in the U.K. much quicker and easier.”
“One of the best parts of the semester—It definitely helped me understand my work environment and my co-workers.”
Unpacked: Student Stories
