Travel Costa Rica

Costa Rica: Social Work Perspectives on Culture, Community, and Language

May 13-26, 2012

SWO 399 (3 undergraduate credits)
SWO 599 (3 graduate credits)

If you're thinking about a career in social work or language interpreting, this travel course is for you! We will spend two weeks in Costa Rica, where you'll be immersed in Spanish and Costa Rican culture by taking Spanish classes specially designed for social work majors and participating in cultural activities like Costa Rican dance and cooking. 

Spanish-speaking people are the largest “minority” group (soon to be a majority) in our country and the ability to speak Spanish and understand some of Latin American culture will enable you to interact with Latinos more comfortably in business, agencies, schools, organizations, and neighborhoods.  In many states, social workers cannot get jobs without some fluency in Spanish.

Through this course, you'll be introduced to colonial heritage, indigenous cultures, and the contemporary socio-political, ecological, and economic issues facing developing countries of Central America in general and Costa Rica specifically.  Two all-day Saturday classes will be held at USM prior to our time in Costa Rica.

The language school where we will have our base, ACCE (Central American Spanish Academy), is located in Grecia, 28 miles from the capital, San Jose, and is widely used by other social work programs in the US such as Adelphi, Portland State University, University of Wisconsin, Fordham, and Pacific University in Oregon: http://www.acce.co.cr/social_workers.html. You will have four hours a day of language learning in groups of four at one of three levels (beginning, intermediate, and advanced Spanish) for a total of 40 hours. The rest of the day will be spent in lectures, and visiting agencies, organizations, and cultural sites.

This course is specially designed for social work majors, but is open to students of all majors.

Faculty

Barbara Rich, Associate Professor, USM School of Social Work. Barbara has over twenty-five years of teaching experience and holds a Masters degree in social work (MSW) from Columbia University in New York. She attended the social work doctoral program at Boston College and is currently Chair of the Practice Sequence in USM's School of Social Work. Barbara has led groups to Belize on a service-learning program since 2007. This will be her first time bringing a group to Costa Rica. 

Stacia Fitch

Application

This program was cancelled due to low enrollment. If you are interested in this program, please e-mail us at international@usm.maine.edu. We can keep you posted on when we'll be offering it again!

A complete application includes all of the following and is due at the Office of International Programs by February 10, 2012:

* Signed, completed application form*
* $400 non-refundable deposit (applied to the program cost)
* Typed 200-word essay
* A letter of recommendation from a faculty member or academic advisor
* Official copies of all academic transcripts

Incomplete applications will not be accepted. You will be notified by e-mail of your application status. If your application is not accepted, the nonrefundable deposit will be returned. If the program is canceled for any reason by the USM, all deposits will be returned.

*If you are having trouble downloading the application, please contact us at (207) 780-4959 or international@usm.maine.edu and we will send you one. You may also want to try upgrading to the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Tuition

The program fee for the Costa Rica program is $2635 plus the cost of three credits of tuition and fees at the in-state rate. The program fee includes accommodation, roundtrip airfare from Portland, scheduled in-country travel, site visits, field trips, breakfast and some dinners, and emergency medical and evacuation insurance through iNext.

Not included in the program fee is the cost of tuition, fees, food, books, academic supplies, some meals, or other personal expenses. Three credits of undergraduate tuition is $759 plus $119 in regular university fees and three credits of graduate tuition is $1140 plus $119 in regular university fees. All participants on USM travel programs receive the in-state tuition rate regardless of residency.

All participants will be automatically registered for a payment plan. The $400 deposit will go towards the cost of the program and the remaining balance will be due as follows:

50% of the balance due March 23, 2012

Remaining balance due April 20, 2012