Barrett Global Honors Flex program gives students semester-long study abroad experience
Barrett Global Honors Flex students and others pose for a photo in front of the Brandenburg Gate during a walking tour in Berlin. Photo courtesy of Barrett Honors College.
Lily Prath, a student in Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University, aspires to work outside the United States someday, so studying abroad to gain an international perspective is especially important to her.
Prath, a first-year student majoring in marketing with a certificate in international business, got exposure to European and German culture, history and art, and amassed honors credits through the Barrett Global Honors Flex program in Berlin, which launched in Spring 2024.
The program offers a semester-long honors study abroad experience for incoming first-year Barrett Honors College students.
“I think the program was enriching. It was a great way to get honors credits while exploring the world and complicated subjects such as communal responsibility for global events,” said Prath, who in addition to attending courses, assisted with a service learning project focused on establishing a library in a refugee community.
“I want to continue working and learning outside of America, so the chance to travel while studying and making connections within my community was an incredible learning experience,” she said.
David Duffek, a mechanical engineering major entering his sophomore year, said the Honors Global Flex program fit nicely with his schedule and helped to enhance his science-based academic experience.
“I would definitely recommend this experience, especially for freshmen in STEM because it is manageable and personally I did not find myself really far behind in my major. This program offers so many opportunities to experience different cultures,” he said.
This was the first year for the Global Honors Flex program for Barrett students.
During the program, students, accompanied by Barrett Associate Teaching Professor Clare Carrasco, lived and learned in the German capital.
They were based at CIEE's Berlin campus, centrally located in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, with residence halls fitted with lounges, kitchens and laundry facilities, classrooms and amenities including student lounges, study space, a student life office, an academic advising office, an on-campus café and outdoor space.
The students took three courses taught by Carrasco while in Berlin, including the honor’s college’s signature course The Human Event, and two upper-level honors seminars, one titled “Arts and Politics in the Weimar Republic” and the other titled “Monumental Issues: Monuments, Memorials, and Collective Memory”. They also took two elective courses through CIEE.
In the course on monuments and memorials, students visited several places in Germany, including the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the Stasi prison memorial, and compared German approaches to remembering dark chapters in that country’s history with controversies surrounding Confederate and colonialist monuments in the United States.
In total, students in the program completed 15 honors credits in their semester abroad.
In their free time, students were able to travel throughout Europe, hitting some highlights such as Hamburg, Salzburg, Paris, Nuremburg and Neuschwanstein Castle, a 19th century palace located in the Bavarian Alps near the Germany-Austria border.
Carrasco said the Global Honors Flex program is special because it offers Barrett's first-year students an opportunity to study abroad for a full semester, which is usually only available to upper-division students, with an honors faculty member in residence with them.
“Already in their first year, these students are fully embracing the courage and curiosity that are part of our core values at Barrett. They have stepped way outside of their comfort zones to become globally engaged learners,” she said.
“It has been incredible for me to see how these students have bonded with one another this semester. Together, they have learned to navigate daily life in Berlin, they have travelled all over Europe in their free time, and they have forged a vibrant learning community in their honors coursework. It has truly been a privilege for me to introduce these students to a city I love and to see each of them transformed by this experience.”
The next Global Honors Flex program will be in Rome, Italy in the Spring 2025 semester. Learn more about Barrett Global Honors Flex in Italy.