Global Connections Experience and Reflection

The Global Connections Experience and Reflection provide all Arcadia students the opportunity to explore new places and cultures. In a sustained cross-cultural experience, you meet people and learn about a society different from that in which you have lived previously. In addition, during your Global Connections Experience you participate in a supervised reflection—typically by compiling an electronic portfolio—in which you document and analyze your experiences.

Where you go for your Global Connections Experience is up to you.

You might choose to go to a foreign country. Every major provides a pathway to study abroad that suggest places and times in which foreign travel particularly enhances your academic development, and Arcadia’s College of Global Studies puts over 130 programs in 15 countries on six continents around the world easily at your fingertips. Arcadia students often study abroad for a semester, but others study abroad for an for a summer or for an entire year.

Your Global Connections Experience also might occur in the United States. Domestic study away programs offer the opportunity to spend a semester at American University in Washington D.C.

Many students also fulfill their Global Connections Experience by taking a Global Connections Experience-designated course in Glenside. A variety of Arcadia courses that engage in extensive service learning as well as other local experiences, such as student teaching and internships, also carry the Global Connections designation when they occur in approved cross-cultural settings.

It is also possible to design an individualized Global Connections Experience in consultation with the Director of Global Connections. More about ways to fulfill the Global Connections Experience.

Students complete the Global Connections Reflection simultaneously to the Global Connections Experience. When students are completing their Global Connections Experience away from Glenside they typically take a 2-credit online course (GCR101) that assists students in reflecting on the interconnections, interdependence, and inequality they encounter during the experience. When students complete their Global Connections Experience as part of a Glenside-based course, the Global Connections Reflection is usually embedded within that course.