Winter 2022 Session Programs

Students will experience first-hand the diverse culture of Ecuador, the environmental pressures associated with tourism, natural resource extraction, agriculture, and the health impacts connected between the two. Students also learn about medicine and medical systems through visits to traditional medicine clinics and modern medical facilities, talking with physicians and other medical providers, and creating infusions and teas with ethnobotanists and Kichwa guides.

Overall, students will examine the intersection between yoga, community values, and health. Key components will include discussion with locals about customs that support health (focus on physical health and community), a service-learning project (tree planting), an open-air food demonstration, and daily yoga practice (inclusive breathing, postures, meditation).

The core educational purpose of this program is to provide a transdisciplinary international service-learning experience in Senegal, West Africa, focused on youth development in relation to social entrepreneurship, agricultural value chains, community development, technological innovation, and culture. Through this program, students will learn new concepts related to issues facing youth in agricultural and community development in Senegal. They will also gain life skills such as self-confidence, teamwork, cross-cultural communication, and more.

The course will explore many cropping systems, both irrigated and dryland, across two distinct regions in Australia - grassland and temperate regions. The students also will be exposed to mixed farming systems – where crop production is integrated with animal production. 

The core educational purpose of this program is to increase awareness among students about the effects of global markets, indigenous cultural factors, and climate change on agriculture and the environment in New Zealand and Australia, major exporters of agricultural products to the United States and other countries, while also improving their ability to communicate interculturally with those they meet.

The focus of the course is how national and local narratives on industrialization, politics, radicalism, race, immigration, gender, class, and sexuality from Northern England are represented within the cultural curriculum, that is, in national and local museums and historic and radical history walks. The course offers the opportunity to compare these representations and concepts with those in the United States.

Explore Costa Rica with us as we study its culture and language. We'll visit the Arenal Volcano, a coffee plantation, learn how chocolate and sugar are made, and explore the Monteverde Cloud Forest. We'll also spend two weeks living with local families and taking Spanish classes next to the beach in Tamarindo. When not in class, we'll be exploring the countryside, searching for wildlife, and getting to know the people and culture.

Students and faculty will travel the “saga road” to locations of literary importance in the creation of the Old Norse sagas.  The terrain of Iceland is critical to the nature of Old Norse imagery and plot in these sagas, and to the government and society that they describe.  Visits to the Althing, the farmsteads, and the Viking museums that commemorate the saga period will support the readings, lectures, and written assignments that are the core of this academic program.

The goal of the program is to provide Virginia Tech students with an exceptional opportunity to enrich their college experience by studying a foreign language and civilization while being immersed in Russian culture in the European Union.

This course will take you to a large variety of rural, and urban settings to learn about water management, ecotourism, agribusiness, biology, forestry, and renewable materials issues. The course balances different teaching methods to increase the learning process to reflect on past, present, and future natural resources in a developing country and their relationship to other geographies such as the United States.

This three and a half-week experiential program will examine resource conservation and the natural, and related social, history of New Zealand’s South Island. In this course you’ll use New Zealand as a case study to examine different cultural perspectives on the three pillars of sustainability: environment, social equity, and economics.

The core educational purpose of this program is to provide students with a unique educational experience that highlights the global issues related to natural resource conservation, including biodiversity, indigenous and diverse cultures, tropical ecology, and the world economy.

This program will have the opportunity to experience each cultural context through the many business visits and excursions that are planned throughout the course of the program. In each destination country there are course activities geared toward the local cultural and historical context (e.g., sustainable business practices, traditional arts and crafts, constitutional monarchy form of government). Part of the course assignments include cultural preparation as well as reflective journaling through the experience.

This study abroad program is intended to give students exposure and experience to European culture and the business environment in Italy. The country of Italy has been of vital interest to the United States for many years, as a trading partner and producer of luxury goods. This program will provide the students an opportunity to gain knowledge and understanding of the main drivers of the Italian economy: food and wine, luxury products, and art and culture.

This study abroad program is a unique opportunity to combine instruction, industry, and cultural visits in India and the United Arab Emirates. Our itinerary is designed to give you firsthand exposure to the business environment and culture in two distinct and rapidly developing economies. The program will visit four cities in India and the two major cities in the United Arab Emirates. The program will be a mixture of class time, visits to businesses, and excursions to some of the significant cultural and historical sites in the area.

The program will include an overview of hospitality in the Dominican Republic with instruction on various aspects of resort management including service, sports amenities, and food and beverage operations, cruise ship operations, destination weddings, marketing, agro-tourism, and crisis management.

The purpose of the program is to provide students with an understanding of businesses related to pop culture industries and how they affect the marketing and economic strategies in Korea and Japan. Pop culture businesses in these two countries predominantly consist of the beauty industry, Japanese-pop (j-pop) and Korean-pop (k-pop) music, anime and manga, and gaming. Students will explore these pop culture industries, their marketing schemes throughout Asia and worldwide, and how the industries affect the economies of these two countries.

This study abroad program is intended to give students experience and exposure to the culture and business environment in New Zealand. The program will visit two areas of New Zealand; the city of Auckland on the North Island, and Queenstown on the South Island. The program will be a mixture of classroom lectures at the University of Auckland, executive speakers from businesses in Asia Pacific, visits to businesses, outdoor adventure activities, and excursions to cultural sites on the islands. There will be a lot of walking and hiking on this program, so students should be physically capable of hiking for at least half a day.

The purpose of this program is to provide students exposure to the Spanish culture, while considering how the influence of the cultural, political, and social force and are influenced by business decisions and practices. Students will observe, interact and learn in five distinct locales (in three regions) of Spain.

This program will have the opportunity to experience each cultural context through the many business visits and excursions that are planned throughout the course of the program. In each destination country there are course activities geared toward the local cultural and historical context (e.g., sustainable business practices, traditional arts and crafts, constitutional monarchy form of government). Part of the course assignments include cultural preparation as well as reflective journaling through the experience.