Spring Term
Are you ready to see the world?
Spring Term at Alma College offers you the opportunity to travel, try authentic cuisine and make new friends from different cultures. If staying home is more your speed, we’ve got plenty of interesting, unique courses that you won’t find in an ordinary college catalog.
Alma’s academic calendar includes a month-long May “Spring Term” for focusing on a single four-credit course. All students are required to complete two Spring Term courses to graduate. The one exception to this is for transfer students entering with 25 or more credits, who need only take one Spring Term course.
See things in a new way
You might find yourself learning about the origins of psychology in Austria and Germany, exploring biodiversity on a beach in New Zealand, or becoming the best educator you can be at Disney World, in Florida. About a third of Spring Term courses involve travel, and they rotate every year — so you’ll have something fresh and exciting to choose from, every year.
During Spring Term, you’ll most likely be interacting with people and cultures that are likely unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Your classmates and professor will be there to share the experience. You’ll see things in a new way — and make memories to last a lifetime.
Where are we going?
Here are some examples of recent Spring Term courses:
- In Connected Through Cycling, you’ll visit France to study ways in which cycling intertwines culture, sport, business, art, engineering, and politics at multiple scales.
- In Origins of Psychology, you’ll visit Austria – home of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud – to explore the historical, cultural, and societal events that resulted in the development of modern psychology.
- In Teacher Leader, you’ll visit Disney World in Orlando, Florida, to engage in hands-on workshops and experiential programs designed to improve your skills in crafting learning environments for PK-12 students.
- In Food, Clothes and Cultural Diversity, you’ll visit Washington, D.C., to learn about and analyze how diverse types of food and clothes trace the historical development of cultural traditions and diversity in American society.
Help with costs
Travel can be expensive, so many students choose to apply for an Alma Venture grant to help cover the cost of an off-campus Spring Term course.
Additionally, the Financial Aid office will work individually with students seeking outside resources, including loans and external scholarships, that can apply to the Spring Term experience.
Student Perspectives
I went to Costa Rica for Spring Term with Dr. Sarah Neumann to study poison dart frogs, and I ended up being asked about it during the graduate school interview process. It’s really beneficial for undergraduates to have something like that on their applications.
I did a Spring Term at Disney World, in Orlando, Fla., called "Teacher Leader." It was a lot of fun, but it was also a really important class, something that taught us all the difference between being an ordinary teacher and being a "teacher leader." I’ll never forget those lessons.
I went to Costa Rica for Spring Term with Dr. Sarah Neumann to study poison dart frogs, and I ended up being asked about it during the graduate school interview process. It’s really beneficial for undergraduates to have something like that on their applications.
I did a Spring Term at Disney World, in Orlando, Fla., called "Teacher Leader." It was a lot of fun, but it was also a really important class, something that taught us all the difference between being an ordinary teacher and being a "teacher leader." I’ll never forget those lessons.