“Experience is not what happens to you;
it’s what you do with what happens to you.”
-Aldous Huxley
The Urban Semester Program is an opportunity for students to explore professional interests, community service and the neighborhoods and communities of one of the most important and interesting cities of the world by using ethnographic methods. Ethnography is a qualitative research approach through which data is generated through immersion in particular social groups. This method is employed in all the social sciences and in many sectors of the economy, whether business or the private-not-for-profit organizations and institutions. Students carry out investigations through a number of real-world experiences:
The Urban Semester Program is much more than an internship program. It is an experience that helps students appreciate their capacity to generate relevant and systematic data, learn about themselves through a process of self-reflection, understand urban issues in New York City, grow through community service, explore career choices and develop close peer relationships.
The program fulfills the charge of the College of Human Ecology: to help students explore the relationship between people and the world around them from a variety of perspectives, and then strive to shape that world for the better through academics, research and outreach.
As educators, we accompany our students in their experiences and guide them through a process of critical thinking and evaluation. Much of the students’ work accentuates:
- confidence-building
- developing trusting relationships
- learning the skills of leadership-in-practice
- acquiring a sense of responsibility for creating a just world
Students receive academic credit and a grade for their work. This work entails daily journals, a variety of papers, seminar participation, and final reports, presentations and term papers.
Academic Semester: Fall and Spring
15 academic credits earned in three courses; three day internships; one day of community service; one day of site visits; seminars.
Summer Session
3 academic credits; up to four day internships that include service, one day that includes site visits and seminars.
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