A crucial component of Grace College life involves a required cross-cultural field experience (CCFE) that all Grace College students must fulfill prior to graduation. Through this first-hand experience, students will have the opportunity to engage in a culture (in a global sense; i.e. different ethnicities or nationalities) other than their own and begin to apply learned concepts to a real-life situation.
Students may select one of the following options:
Students selecting Go Encounter will choose from a number of domestic and international trips that are organized and administered by Grace College. Benefits of these trips include payment through student account, Grace College subsidy for those using it as their CCFE, use of eligible financial aid and on-site debriefing. Students are strongly encouraged to fulfill their CCFE their sophomore or junior year.
Select majors require participation in the Study Abroad program to fulfill their program degree requirements. All students, however, are encouraged to consider spending a semester abroad. Contact the Institute for Global Studies for more information.
Students may choose to participate in a semester abroad at a partner institution. Grace College partners with two institutions for the exchange program: Handong Global University, located in South Korea, and Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church, located in Hungary. You do not have to speak Korean or Hungarian to go, and your financial aid applies too, so it is a perfect way to experience the world.
A course designed for bi-cultural individuals for whom the United States is a cross-cultural experience. Students explore some of the assumptions, values and beliefs that characterize the United States and compare those with other cultures. They also discover the third culture, as defined by Dr. Useem, “created, shared, and learned” by those who are from one culture and are in the process of relating to another.