Global Perspectives (EXT 300)
Are you thinking about what your experience abroad will be like? Are you curious about the challenges of communicating across cultures? Do you want to gain perspective on what it would be like to work and live in an intercultural environment?
Learn more about intercultural communication by taking the Education Abroad: Global Perspectives (EXT 300) course. It's a 3-credit course that you complete online at your own pace. You can take it during your education abroad experience or as part of your regular studies at home. It'll help give you the tools to successfully live, study, and work globally.
If you are in the Certificate in International Learning program, EXT 300 can be taken to fulfill the intercultural communication training.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, you will:
- Discuss global and cultural issues in order to understand other people's realities and contexts
- Appreciate the constructive intentions and outcomes of intercultural living, especially that which is informed by mutual respect and historical/cultural understanding
- Learn from others and value the diverse ways different communities design and manage their lives
- Appreciate the relative equity (there are, of course, exceptions) of ideas, knowledge systems and ways of living
- Facilitate new forms of global cultural openness that should help leaders to potentially evolve into thoughtful and inclusively oriented and competent individuals who serve the public good in all learning and working contexts
"I've taken few classes at university that have truly opened my eyes and forced me to look critically at myself, my culture, my biases, and the way I interact with culturally-different others. The module content and readings were incredibly interesting, and I've found myself applying what I learned from this course in almost every one of my classes this semester. The lessons in EXT 300 are ones I think every university student should learn, regardless of whether they plan on pursuing an "international" career or not."
-Kate McInness, EXT 300 Summer 2016 student
Dates
* Students must register in both parts of the course: Spring EXT 300A and Summer EXT 300B
Eligibility
All U of A students are eligible to take the course.
Where applicable, EXT 300 will be applied as a *3 non-Arts/Science option for the Faculty of Arts students. Other students should check with their home faculty whether this course qualifies as an elective option for their program.
