CRI sponsors semester-long study abroad australia programs for college students that combine different outdoor adventure activities and college-level courses in the Humanities. This is a unique study abroad australia program. Unlike other programs, the Castle Rock Institute expedition has a significant adventure education component, and is devoted to the concept of Community Learning.
An Alternative to Ordinary College Life
The Castle Rock Institute is wilderness-based research center for the Humanities affiliated with Brevard College. As a study abroad australia program, it seeks applications from college and unviersity students from the United States and abroad to live, travel, study and experience the outdoors together for a semester. Based in a lodge set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, the Institute aims to enliven the study of the Humanities through focused interdisciplinary classwork, attention to community living, and through organized group outdoor activities. It is an integrated program that combines and balances many concerns and interests of college students.
The Institute's study abroad australia expedition encourages interdisciplinary thought and experimentation by focusing each semester on a particular theme drawn from the Humanities generally. This theme serves as the main topic of discussion and study for the student participants on the expedition. More on this below.
A Full Semester of Academic Credit
Expedition students enroll in 4 different, but related courses taught by Castle Rock Institute Senior Professors. Each course meets regularly throughout the semester and awards four hours of college credit. The Institute strives to balance and integrate scholarship and adventure, and believes that doing so can realize significant benefits for both.
Applied Humanities
Different from the historical approach of most college Humanities programs, the curriculum at the Castle Rock Institute is organized thematically. Instead of sweeping through a series of "great books," all of the courses offered during each semester at the Institute address a single issue, idea or theme drawn from the Humanities. Accordingly, each class explicitly considers how insights offered by the other disciplines can contribute to an overall understanding of the theme at hand.
Study in Australia
As a complement to its academic mission, the Castle Rock Institute organizes for its students a variety of outdoor adventure activities. The Institute takes seriously the idea that there is a fundamental connection between body and mind, between the embodied practice of lived experience and the more abstract, theoretical concerns of the intellect. A truly valuable college education will involve the whole person, and provide long-lasting benefits.
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