Spend six weeks and earn six credits while learning about Mexican culture and society! The Arcadia Civic Engagement Summer Program at UPAEP is an extraordinary opportunity that combines dynamic classroom instruction and fieldwork and homestay experience.

This program is designed to allow participants to truly become part of a community, living with a local family. Students will have the opportunity to learn about culture, tradition, family life, education, and self-sustaining agricultural and artistic production in a variety of community-based initiatives.

The program consists of two courses. Students spend the first two weeks at UPAEP, learning about culture and society in Mexico and the structure of the community where they will spend the remainder of the program. Lectures will be given in English and Spanish (with English translation) for a total of thirty hours. Lectures cover a range of topics relating to contemporary Mexico, including history, economics, society, indigenousness, religion, education, poverty, and migration. Students also study Spanish language (45 hours) to build language facility for the civic engagement component.

Both courses begin at UPAEP and continue through the service learning component in La Preciosita. Group reflection sessions throughout the program assist students in preparing for and engaging in the service learning experience in the rural community of La Preciosita.