One of the many benefits of studying abroad is students learning from world-class faculty while also gaining a new perspective on the world around them. The space where learning happens isn’t limited to the classroom, but expanded to a specific site, with courses planned to both inform and immerse.

As they connect their learning to the places where they study and vice versa, students are equipped with the tools to approach knowledge with curiosity, exploration, and context. Here are some recent courses that capitalize on the locations where they take place.

Cultures and Context: The Black Atlantic

At NYU Accra, Professor Kofi Baku teaches this wide-ranging history course to explore the concept of the Black Atlantic as a sociocultural and economic space. The course covers the 15th-century capture of Africans and their arrival in the New World, the rise of slavery and the eventual emancipation in the Americas, and decolonization and the Black struggle for liberation, equality, and Pan-Africanism.

To complement the historical moments covered in the course, Professor Baku organizes field trips to key sites in Ghana. These trips include a tour of the Cape Coast and Elmina Castle, where African captives were held before they were sent to the Americas. They also visit Osu Castle to learn about the legacies of the Danish slave trade on the Gold Coast. And finally, they visit a plantation in Sesemi to learn about the Gold Coast’s development after the abolition of the slave trade. As students visit these sites, they write personal, interdisciplinary reflections based on their experiences.

Culture of the City: Italian Urban Life

At NYU Florence, Professor Davide Lombardo thinks of the city on two levels: historical and theoretical. From ancient times to modernity, students get a historical and spatial overview of the evolution of Florence’s urban environment.

Aurora Russell, a junior double majoring in Psychology and Journalism with a minor in Anthropology comments on the importance of immersion, “We spend the field-based classes completely in the location, whether it’s out in the city, in a museum, or at a church. Immersing yourself in an environment while you’re discussing that place is a really good way to learn about and understand it.”

Shaping an Educational Landscape: Museum Island

At NYU Berlin, Professor Annette Loeseke organizes a thematic exploration of museums in her course, a mixture of classroom discussions and field trips to the cultural institutions on Museumsinsel. Home to Berlin’s complex of five world-famous museums, students explore the role of the museum in modern times covering topics like feminist and LGBTQ+ perspectives on art collections, digital museum tools and the politics of code, and postcolonial museums in diverse societies.

Throughout the semester, the class meets at the Altes Museum, Neues Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, Pergamon Museum and Panorama, Bode-Museum, and Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art (which is not on Museuminsel), to explore the intersection of museums, history, culture, and politics.

Repurposed with permission from Meet NYU.