In my recent talk with students in Kigali, Rwanda, they had a lot of questions about the unique features of American colleges and universities. Students were familiar with the brand-name colleges and a few colleges that had visited their school. Beyond that, they were surprised by the variety of college options, locales, and even distinctions among the Ivy League universities. One of the students with an interest in engineering asked about Johns Hopkins University.
A cool feature about Johns Hopkins is that it offers a January (“intersession”) term. The January term allows students to travel abroad or delve into an interesting topic that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to take otherwise, because it’s outside their course of study, nontraditional or both. For example, several of the courses offered recently at Johns Hopkins during its January term included Shiatsu sitting, Leading for Social Change, Iranian Intellectual History, travel study in Cuba, and ballroom dance.
Here are several other colleges that offer a January term:
- Centre College in Kentucky
- Elon University
- MIT
- Middlebury College
- Loyola University
- Oberlin College
- St. Mary’s of California
- University of Delaware
- University of San Francisco
- Williams College
This is a short list to whet your interest. There are numerous other campuses that offer a January term. Which additional colleges/universities did you find?