STUDY ABROAD: CREDITS FOR PURA VIDA!

What do the words study abroad and Costa Rica have in common?

“Pura Vida!”

Do you sometimes sit at home, bored about school?

Then, think this. . .

"Study abroad."

Sounds romantic, exciting, doesn't it? Much better than the "good old days" I recall.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away…I traipsed through snow and cold to sit in a boring classroom with lots of other bored students. Every January, each student designed one class for himself or herself and, at the end of the month, submitted a short paper for credit. Most of us designed programs that (I'll be honest here) were---well---boring (and the weather was still nasty).

My, how times have changed!

Imagine studying abroad in Costa Rica, learning Spanish in the morning, surfing in the afternoon, and getting college credit!

Is this getting an education or just another excuse for a terrific Costa Rica vacation?

Just doesn't seem fair, does it?

Oh well. Pura Vida!

Finding a Program in Costa Rica

Consequently, you'll probably need to spend some time searching out student opportunities in Costa Rica.

I'd do it for you except that

there are hundreds, perhaps over 1000, student opportunities and

you're the student who likes to Google and

I'm not all that interested in doing your work.

BUT. . . I'm a pretty decent guy and I did find an extraordinary site SO. . .

Before you Google everything you can think of, I strongly recommend you check out an absolutely outstanding site from the Center for Global Education.

It's worth 5 Stars!

Click here and read this invaluable Study Abroad Student Handbook.

And, by all means, be careful about study abroad scams. Find out more about study abroad interviews.

A Couple of Ideas

University For Peace

It is called the University for Peace and has this mission:

"to provide humanity with an international institution of higher education for peace and with the aim of promoting among all human beings the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress, in keeping with the noble aspirations proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations."

How infrequently do we hear the word "noble" these days? Or "tolerance?"

If you have noble aspirations consider the U.N.'s chartered University for Peace, click

They Give You Money for Pura Vida? Wow!

But you, lucky student, can find benefactors to GIVE you money to experience the land of Pura Vida.

Travel Costa Rica on somebody else's money!

Isn't this a great time to be in school?

Great times, free money click here for study abroad scholarships.

Study Abroad

Save a Life or a Species

Or maybe---just maybe---you saw a whale---and were really thrilled.

I bet you've never seen a sea turtle.

Come, study abroad in Costa Rica, and you can see a few like these nesting olive ridleys.

A few? Does it look like a lot to you?

Consider. When Christopher Columbus discovered Costa Rica (yep, he did in 1503) there were so many sea turtles that when ships sometimes got lost they found land simply by listening to the sounds of millions and millions of sea turtles swimming towards shore.

There were, literally, hundreds of millions of giant sea turtles, swimming in huge numbers in every ocean of the world except the Arctic.

Thousands and thousands of beaches hosted nesting sea turtles every year.

In fact, on one beach alone, Ostional Beach, every year 1,000,000 turtle eggs are collected so they can be sold in some restaurants and bars because some people foolishly think these little eggs are an aphrodisiac.

Why does Costa Rica allow the harvest? TO PRESERVE SEA TURTLES.

You see, at Ostional, more than 100 million eggs can be laid in a nesting season.

A sustainable harvest provides incentive to the local communities to protect these endangered animals while regulating the take.

In my lifetime, I'll never experience the sound of tens of thousands of sea turtle flippers in the water.

In your lifetime, you'll never have that experience, either.

The truth is YOU'VE BEEN CHEATED.

When you look over the waves and see one single seal, or one single whale, or no turtles, you've been cheated from seeing God's full creation.

But the future has yet to be written. Perhaps one day your child or grandchild can have the thrill that you and I cannot. Or perhaps one day the oceans will go forever silent and no one will ever hear the sound of flippers against the surf.

There are good people, dedicated people, who are fighting to preserve an extraordinary animal that has survived since the age of dinosaurs.

You can help. Study abroad in Costa Rica with marine conservation groups like Latin American Sea Turtle Organization, click here.

Share your concern with others (you can do it easily from the bottom of this page) and ask them to share their concerns. Spread the word virally.

And come down to help.

Study abroad in Costa Rica.

Have fun.

Meet new people.

Have new experiences.

And save a life----or a species.

Click to learn more about sea turtles.

Did You Study or Teach in Costa Rica?

Do you have a great story about teaching or studying in Costa Rica? Maybe teach or study in a program I haven't listed.

What did you do? Where'd you go?

What did you get out of the experience?

Please share it!

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