Pre-departure Intercultural Learning

Catalog description

STS 115 (1-3) Pre-departure Cross-cultural Engagement serves as a pre-departure introduction for students to the culture of their international travel destination affiliated with Penn State programing. The course content covers key social issues, practical cultural information that is relevant for travelers and students, and language use for essential communication. In addition, this course seeks to promote safety, mitigate cultural shock, make students more capable abroad, and help Penn State students to become better ambassadors of their university and country. Students in this course can expect to acquire the appropriate context and preparation necessary to confront challenges abroad and have a more enriching experience. In addition, learners will be provided context about the international travel destination to prepare them for their activities abroad, positioning learners to be able to connect course content to topics in science, technology, and society that will be explored in an international environment. By the end of this course, students will be able to express information important about the travel region¿s identity, demonstrate critical thinking related to the location of travel, evaluate cultural differences, articulate key concepts in the local culture and its cuisine, demonstrate proficiency in the ability to use appropriate vocabulary in the target culture, construct effective communication strategies, and employ a capability to be an effective communicator in the local context of their immersion experience abroad. In addition, students will engage in critical analysis of international institutions as they relate to those one is familiar with in their home country, foster cultural humility, and develop cultural intelligence. Students will broaden their comprehension of a variety of factors that influence the local, regional, and national environments. Themes of politics, environment, industry, immigration, history, and cultural tradition will be explored. Furthermore, students engage in critical analysis of international institutions as they relate to those one is familiar with in their home country. Human behavior as it relates to both the host and home country are a focus of the course. The course will employ various methods of distilling knowledge including at the epistemic, theoretical, and empirical levels as it endeavors to provide students with a framework to interpret and subsequently describe events in a global context. In addition, as international culture is a focal point of this course, it is a natural fit to meet the International Cultures (IL) requirement.