El Camino students will have the opportunity to travel to Central Europe and learn the culture and earn six college credits in three and a half weeks, an art professor said.
The study abroad trip will be from June 27 to July 19. The students will visit four countries and five cities in that period of time, Karen Whitney said.
EC faculty has taken other students to experience this opportunity. In the past, some students have gone to Spain, Costa Rica, Italy and other countries.
This time students will go to Prague, Vienna, and they will end up in Munich, a city in Germany, Whitney said.
There are not a lot of requirements for students to apply for this study abroad program.
Students that apply need to be 18 years old and have a 2.0 GPA Whitney said. There is no pre-requisite for going but having English 1A is recommended.
Whitney added that they can take up to 30 students to go to Europe and there are 20 students who have been approved.
“(The Study Abroad Program) is open to any student,” Whitney said. “It could be a new student or it could be a student who will not coming back next semester.”
The applicants will have two options to pay for the trip, which will cover must of the things that they will need while staying oversea.
“The cost is $5,200 but this includes air fare, accommodation and also covers breakfast every morning,” Whitney said.
If students decide to buy their own flight ticket the cost will be $3,876.
Other things that the cost will cover is a bus that will take the students from city to city.
Also, the students will get transportation passes when they’re visiting larger cities, but “some of the cities are very walkable,” Whitney said.
In order for students to be considered to travel they need to fill out an application that it can be found in the Study Abroad website.
Some of the things that the application requires are the students’ general information, a passport photo, two recommendation letters, transcripts and filling out a scholarship application, Whitney said.
There will be four classes, which students need to take two and those classes are related to the art and history of the cities they will be visiting.
Whitney is offering Art 101 and Art 102 B and English professor Sean Donnell said he is teaching English 12 and English 41B.
Last summer students had the opportunity to travel to Florence, Italy and former Copyeditor for The Union Christina Lyon, 29, journalism major, was one of those students.
“It was amazing (when I went to Italy),” Lyon said. “It was really exciting and educational, but mainly it was just a really great life experience.”
Lyon also said that the Study Abroad Program is a great opportunity for everyone, but especially to those students who like or want to travel.
“I think everyone should go to a study abroad trip because it such as great thing to experience and education is very important, but it also good to be aware of what’s outside of our comfort zone and outside our country,” Lyon said.
Whitney agrees with Lyon because she said that it can be such a life changing experience for the students to move outside of their own everyday experience and see how other people live.
“Sometimes we need to get outside of ourselves in order to find ourselves,” Whitney said. “Study abroad is doing just that in a deep and meaningful way,”
