By Lawren Shepard
Campus Life Editor

The Office of International Programs announced five summer courses open to UNCP students who would like to explore the world while earning college credit.

“We’re very excited, we want more students to take advantage of this,” said Dr. Alexander N. Chen, associate vice chancellor for International Programs.

Each of the five courses is designed for students in certain fields, but all students are welcome to participate. Students will complete either one or two classes, earning three or six credit hours, depending on the program.

This summer, students in the Sociology and American Indian Studies departments will go to Russia; students studying foreign language and culture will go to Spain; international marketing and foreign language students will go to Mexico; sociology students will go to France while students in the Education Department will go to the Netherlands.

“Studying abroad helps students move to the next level about their values, their philosophy,” Chen said.

“One of the most important things is for people to see different things, it really changes their perspective.

According to Chen, 14 students have paid the required deposit. The number of UNCP students studying abroad has risen from 12 to 54 in the past year.

The summer programs may be especially attractive to students who would like to study abroad but can’t be away from home, their jobs or their families for an entire semester. The five summer programs vary in duration from two to five weeks.

UNCP tuition is the same whether you are studying in a classroom in Pembroke, at the prestigious Technologico de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico, at the Center of Modern Languages at the University of Granada in Granada, Spain or any of the other universities involved with the programs.

Airfare and other expenses are not covered in the amount of summer tuition, and prices vary depending on the program. However, living costs are often much less expensive, Chen said.

Some of the programs will provide housing on the campus of the foreign university, while others offer the chance to live with local families while attending classes.

The law states that students are allowed to use their federal financial aid money for international study, according to the program’s website. Scholarships are not available for the summer programs.

Students do not need to be proficient in a second language to study abroad. Some of the programs will be taught by UNCP faculty, while others will be taught by English-speaking instructors at the various universities.

One of the programs also accepts newly-graduated high school students who have never set foot in a classroom on the Pembroke campus, including those who do not plan to receive their degree from UNCP, according to the program’s website.

“We would like to see that every summer we can provide three to five programs to cover every part of the world and every subject,” Chen said.

For more information on these programs, including a basic itinerary and estimated costs, visit the Office of International Programs’ website at http://www.uncp.edu/ip/programs.