Is Ireland Your Dream?

Did you know that more than 34.5 million U.S. residents claim Irish ancestry? This number is almost nine times the population of Ireland today. No wonder we are getting such a great response to our study in Ireland program for summer 2010. We’re hearing that going to Ireland is a lifelong dream for many of our students. We are working with Irish American University which has many programs in common with CMC, especially in the areas of Entrepreneurship, Business and Finance, Liberal Arts such as Literature, and degrees and certificates in Hospitality Management. Did I mention that their campus is ideally located in historic Dublin across the street from Trinity College? Start planning!

International Programs Road Show

Melanie Stevens and I have spent the last couple of days visiting with students on several CMC campuses and the excitement is building for Study Abroad opportunities coming up this spring and summer 2010. We had a great time visiting classes and after looking at slides, I'm ready to beam myself over to Madrid to sit in an outdoor café to people watch and have a café con leche and then to wander through Velazquez room of the Prado Museum. Ah, well, soon enough. Join us!

Have a look at our web page. Ireland is a hot topic now too!
www. coloradomtn.edu/international_programs

Expand Your Horizons, Education Abroad 2010

CMC is very committed to providing students with affordable opportunities to build their global skill set. I recently had a call from a parent who wanted to send her two sons to Spain with CMC for a Spanish language immersion program. When she saw our prices she wanted to know why our prices were so low when comparable programs at larger Colorado universities were up to three times more expensive. I told her that it is simple --CMC doesn't make money on our Study Abroad Programs. What a student invests in program fees on his or her abroad program is spent directly on that student offering a quality abroad experience for much less.

So if you are ready to expand your educational and personal growth and are looking for critical career advantages, give some serious consideration to participating in one of our quality education abroad programs.

Spring Semester in Spain 2010 - Deadline is fast approaching!
Guatemala- Political Sciences & Art - March
Ireland - Literature & Entrepreneurship - Summer 2010

www.coloradomtn.edu/international_programs

Study Abroad Survey Results

CMC recently received results from a Student Study Abroad Survey conducted by Interact Communications. Here is what our Study Abroad students from the last few years had to say. We are considering the results as we plan our programs for the coming year.

Here is what we learned:

- While students felt that self-discipline was needed to do well in abroad programs, they also agreed that they had consistent support from faculty to help them
- 87% of students said they were intellectually challenged
- The majority of our students study abroad to learn a language and they expect to have fun doing it!
- Community participants can learn and participate without taking class for credit toward a program
- 97.4 % of our study abroad students recommend us to other students
- 59% of our students said it was relatively easy to take a semester program and a similar number said they would like to participate in a semester program
- 94% of our students said that our semester program was good to very good
- 89% said that a four week program would be easy to do and 85% said that a two week program would be easy to do
- 72% of students said that their study abroad experience did not extend the time it took to get their degrees

Here is what we do well:

- Provide academically challenging programs
- Students meet and interact with people from the host country and other international students
- Students can take courses that can count toward their degree programs
- Most students felt that the study load was about right --neither too light nor too heavy
- The great majority of students felt that their course abroad was “better” (learned more) than their campus courses
- Our community and campus students agreed that travel was a big motivator for them
- They found the unique content they were looking for in their programs abroad and that CMC faculty positively impacted the learning experience

What we should do more of:

- We want to develop more internship opportunities for students
- We would like to offer a larger variety of language and other discipline programs
- We should establish new student and faculty exchange opportunities
- We need more scholarship opportunities to improve student access
- We want to do more marketing to get the word out about our programs

• Programs in the Planning for 2010:
  
  2 Spanish Immersion programs
  1 Social Science program w/ another discipline
  1 Humanities/Literature
  1 Physical Science program

Thank you to all the students who replied to the survey!

Updates for Study Abroad on the CMC web-site are coming soon!

Students Traveling Abroad with CMC Summer 2009

While we don't have a large group of students traveling abroad this summer for CMC college credit, we do have some exciting things happening. We have two students who will study Spanish and culture in Salamanca, Spain for four weeks and another student who will student for four weeks in Alajuela, Costa Rica.

These students will study Spanish with professional local teachers in small groups and live with local host families. Students almost always say that they learned as much with their families as they did in school. The families provide a chance for students to practice the Spanish they've learned in class and receive the benefit of experience and local knowledge about where to go and what to see.

I'll soon me sharing some of the things that these students will see and do in their respective countries. What are you doing this summer?