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Education Abroad

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The Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost CAT Community

How will you practice your global citizenship?

 

(Video Credit: Kayla Wilkinson, Learning Assistant, Wander CAT Community, Spring 2017)

The Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost CAT Community is a unique, year-long academic experience for first-year students at Kansas State University. As a group, we practice what it means to be a global citizen and explore the ethical dimensions of intercultural experiences. In the fall term, we examine the social construction of cultures and how they help form our identities. In the spring, we prepare for and travel during Spring Break on a study tour to major cosmopolitan communities, where we engage with and reflect critically upon the people, history, culture, society, economy, and environment of those locations.

Wander CAT Community 2017 - Musee de Cluny, Paris 

6 Credits

 

3 Courses

 

1 Life-Changing Experience

 

 

The Power of a Year-Long Learning Community

The Wander CAT Community is one of K-State First's non-residential Connecting Across Topics (CAT) Communities: it is designed around student interests and offers mentoring from two professors and an advanced undergraduate learning assistant who share their students' interests. Unlike most other CAT Communities and other universities' first-year experiences, the Wander CAT Community includes an education abroad component and unfolds over the entirety of students' first year at Kansas State.

The Wander CAT Community combines the transformative power of a guided education abroad experience with the academic rigor and service-learning opportunities of three Leadership Studies courses and social bonding of a K-State First learning community--all within the most important year of students' college careers.

KSU

A First-Year Student Opportunity

Any first-year student enrolled full-time at Kansas State University in the fall term may enroll in the Wander CAT Community. Even if you have thirty or more credits at the start of the fall (and therefore technically possess sophomore standing), you may enroll in the program.

At Orientation and Enrollment in June, students may enroll in the first two fall courses. Over the summer, they may apply through Education Abroad for the Spring Break study tour. Students who make satisfactory academic progress in the fall term may enroll for the spring course and travel with the community.

Three Courses, Two Professors, One Community

Students enroll in three courses during their first year at Kansas State--two in the fall semester and one in the spring--for a total of six credits:

Fall Term
  • LEAD 195: Global Citizenship I (one credit)
  • LEAD 212: Introduction to Leadership Concepts (two credits)
Spring Term
  • LEAD 502: Global Citizenship II (three credits)

No matter what your academic plan may involve, the Wander CAT Community can help you make progress toward degree requirements and strengthen your transcript. If you intend to minor in Leadership Studies, you are nearly half way toward completion after your first year: all three courses serve as core or elective options for the minor. In addition, you may contract all three courses with the University Honors Program.

Po Lin Monastery

A Cosmopolitan Spring Break

Each year the Wander CAT Community travels to different major cosmopolitan cities abroad over Spring Break:

2016: Hong Kong, China

2017: Paris, France

The study tour is a week-long experience on which students travel as a group with the program's instructors and learning assistant. Past program activities have included the challenges of urban public transit, tours of historic and cultural sites, group meals of international cuisines, reflection on places of worship and natural parks, and free time to wander among vibrant city neighborhoods.

An Affordable Study Abroad Experience

The Wander CAT Community is one of the most affordable education abroad programs that Kansas State has to offer. As long as they are enrolled full-time during their first year and are otherwise eligible, students may use federal financial aid to help with both tuition and program fee expenses. In addition, all participants may apply for OIP Scholarships and may use any external scholarships that apply toward study abroad programs. Those students who possess freshman standing in the fall term may also apply for the Freshmen Education Abroad Scholarship.

The program includes participation in three courses that total six credits of tuition and a study tour that bears a program fee for travel expenses. The following program costs represent the expenses for the 2016-2017 academic year program and are subject to change for future years:

  • K-State Tuition and Fees for Undergraduate Courses (Billed to KSIS): *$1,827.40 (in-state residents) or *$3,317.50 (out-of-state residents), which includes:
    • *$300.40 (in-state) or *$797.10 (out-of-state) for LEAD 195 (one credit)
    • *$600.80 (in-state) or *$1,594.20 (out-of-state) for LEAD 212 (two credits)
    • *$901.20 for LEAD 502 (three credits; all students pay in-state tuition for LEAD 502)
    • $25.00 Global Campus Fee for LEAD 502
  • Program Fees (Billed to KSIS): $2,750.00
    • For group travel expenses such as international airfare, accommodations, events and admissions, group meals, the OIP administrative fee, bank wire fees, and international health insurance
  • Additional Anticipated Expenses (Not Billed): $500.00
    • For individual travel expenses not included in the program fee such as a passport fee, individual meals, gratuities/tips, immunizations, communications plans, immunizations, optional excursions, and textbooks.

*Tuition estimates are based on 2016-2017 K-State Fee Schedule. Rates are likely to change for the 2017-2018 academic year and beyond. For LEAD 502, regardless of students' residency status, all students pay in-state, Manhattan-campus tuition rates.

Nan Lian Gardens

An Academically Rigorous Exploration of Global Citizenship

The Wander CAT Community is premised on the cultural and ethical concept of "global citizenship": what it is, how we practice it, and why it is important. Contemporary American culture makes frequent reference to the idea of "global citizenship," so the program employs this concept as a means to facilitate an international learning community for students as they start their college careers.

In partnership with the Staley School of Leadership Studies, the community embraces the values-centered education mission of "developing knowledgeable, ethical, caring, inclusive leaders for a diverse and changing world" and encourages the practice of global citizenship for constructive social change.

The Wander CAT Community as a whole, as well as each course in particular, carries its own student learning objectives:

CAT Community Learning Objectives

1. Think critically. By the end of this academic year, you should be able to identify interdisciplinary connections among LEAD 195, 212, and 502 and explain their overlapping thematic questions or issues.

2. Communicate critically. By the end of this academic year, you should be able to express your own understanding of course content in respectful dialogue with others and with engagement, imagination, and self-reflection.

3. Build community. By the end of this academic year, you should be able to interact effectively with faculty and peers both inside and outside of the classroom.

4. Apply Learning. By the end of this academic year, you should be able to use the skills and knowledge learned in LEAD 195, 212, and 502 to solve new problems, answer questions, or identify areas for further investigation.

LEAD 195 Learning Objectives

1. Build your capacities for self-reflection and self-understanding. By the end of this course, you should be more able to discern the social forces that shape your identity; reflect analytically on your thoughts and feelings; and begin to make personal commitments to core beliefs that motivate you as an active global citizen.

2. Develop critical communication and thinking abilities. By the end of this course, you should be more able to communicate clearly and efficiently within and among other cultures; analyze ideas, perspectives, and values critically; and adapt intellectually when new ideas may challenge your core beliefs.

3. Embrace intercultural values and perspectives. By the end of this course, you should be more open to intercultural experiences; empathetic toward people of other cultures; able to resolve intercultural ambiguities, conflicts, and misunderstandings; and prepared to critique constructively forms of power, privilege, and inequity within and among cultures.

MHK
LEAD 212 Learning Objectives

1. Describe personal strengths, styles, and preferences that contribute to leadership

2. Apply concepts of leadership to individual and group practices

3. Demonstrate effective group dynamics within a leadership learning community

4. Critically reflect on leadership processes, practice, and purpose

LEAD 502 Learning Objectives

1. Value the personal and social power of intercultural engagement. By the end of this course, you should gain a basic familiarity with our host city's culture that will awaken you to cultural assumptions; possess greater curiosity and empathy toward people of other cultures; and seek to integrate diverse perspectives to resolve ethical and social problems.

2. Begin sustained commitments to ethical self-development and social responsibility. By the end of this course, you should understand better the moral complexities of social interactions; practice how to refine core beliefs that ground you within intercultural contexts; exhibit greater humility and self-awareness when judging the actions of others; and desire to fulfill actively your social responsibilities in local and global contexts.

3. Develop the knowledge and skills to travel abroad autonomously. By the end of this course, you should be more comfortable with the practical and logistical demands of international travel; able to navigate these challenges effectively and independently; and capable of handling ambiguity in new cultural, economic, and social environments.

Contact Information

Joe Milostan, M.A.

Director, Education Abroad

304 Fairchild Hall

milosta1@ksu.edu

(785) 532-5990