Experiential Learning

Students earn 15 semester units through a curriculum blending four academic components: an interdisciplinary urban culture-learning seminar (Urban Explorations, 3 units); a critical survey of diverse religious experiences (Urban Religious Movements, 3 units); a major-specific community internship (Community Organization and Social Change, 6 units); an overview of immigration in L.A. (Immigrant L.A., 3 units).

It is the quality of the learning environment and the relationship of the person to it that ultimately determines how much that person will learn. Instead of simply learning about people of other cultures, classes, and creeds, students learn from them and with them. During the program, vital connections are made between interdisciplinary classroom study and concrete community experiences.

In the community, students are challenged and changed through a variety of mentoring relationships as they reside with culturally diverse families. They meet the urban powerful and the urban powerless. They learn how to explore issues like poverty, homelessness, immigration, and HIV/A.I.D.S. with resident 'experts' – welfare mothers, street children, undocumented immigrants, and A.I.D.S. sufferers. They develop specialized skills through supervised internships within grassroots ministries and community organizing programs. In addition, they survey the diverse religious landscape of the city, including its Christian churches, Islamic mosques, Buddhist meditation centers, Hindu temples, and Jewish synagogues. In small groups, students discuss their community experiences, mine the Bible for insight, and form ethical responses, all energized by times of corporate worship and prayer.

A Piece of the Bigger Picture

All of the L.A. Term courses are either part of the General Education program at APU, or are upper division electives students can complete for credit towards graduation. Please check with your academic advisor and contact us for more information. Some majors carry an exceptionally high number of required (core) courses, and might present a challenge to including the L.A. Term into an existing graduation plan. In such cases, students can add an extra semester for completion of the L.A. Term. For the majority of students, a little extra planning will allow them to easily fit the L.A. Term into their four-year plan. Please consult your academic advisor and contact the Office of Study Abroad for more information.

Courses

GLBL315 Urban Explorations
This class aims to provide an introduction to the places, peoples, processes, and pressures of city life, with Los Angeles as the primary example. The course integrates experiential and academic learning, with an emphasis on those aspects of urban reality that remain unseen or marginalized in mainstream society. In addition to exploring the physical and social circumstances that shape a complex social reality, the course probes the experiences of urban residents. Group excursions and paired projects fuel classroom discussions, while interdisciplinary readings provide conceptual frames for analyzing urban topics. The course encourages students to transcend the detachment of the classroom, and to experience firsthand ‘what is’ in order to envision ‘what might be.’

GLBL330 Community Organization and Social Change
This course aims to help students understand the organization of urban, multicultural communities, while encouraging the development of a lifestyle of compassionate service through a semester-long internship. The course involves students in the formal and experiential study of select areas in central Los Angeles through a combination of directed reading, an internship, and group discussions. Students participate in a weekly seminar where they engage in personal and theological reflection, skill and value assessment, and project planning. The course emphasizes the volunteer's response to the world of poor and working-class communities, and that world's response to the student-volunteer's presence among them. The 3 hours of the internship can be constructed to fit your major.

GLBL345 Urban Religious Movements
This course aims to survey the variety of religious movements in Los Angeles, including Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and new religious movements. Emphasis is placed on the vernacular character of their faith, embodied and expressed in the beliefs, attitudes, practices, and rituals of their specific social and cultural situations. Learning activities include participant observation at religious services, informant interviewing, directed reading, and group discussion.

SOC359 Immigrant L.A.
Immigrant L.A. focuses on the social dimensions of immigration into Southern California. In-depth stories of immigrants and various site visits contribute to students' experiential learning on the subject.