Is Elective Right For You?
Elective is study abroad, reimagined for adults. It's for people who are intellectually curious, and who want to go beyond sightseeing. Ask yourself these questions to see if Elective is right for you.
1. Do I want to travel as a tourist or as a student?
You can have the best guides in the world and do everything "like a local" — insider art tours, a cooking class in someone's kitchen, guided visits of little-known monuments. But that's still sightseeing; it's designed for tourists.
Studying abroad is different. You immerse yourself in a topic that's brought to life in and through a particular place. Your instructor is a local expert on the topic — not a guide reciting facts, but a scholar with a PhD — who actively involves your cohort in discussions and Field Seminars throughout the city. There's a through-line connecting what you learn, each day building on the last, so by the end of the week, everything is linked — you understand with a depth that doesn't come from a series of guided tours.
2. Do I want to switch off completely, or be engaged while I travel?
Sometimes when you go away, you just want to sit on a beach and switch off your brain. There's nothing wrong with that. An Elective is for when you want the opposite: to have your brain engaged and stimulated. That doesn't mean you're sitting in a classroom or doing homework all night. Field Seminars happen out in the city, in the mornings only — by 1pm, you're on your own, free to follow your instructor's Self-Guided Study suggestions or explore independently.
3. Do I want to see as much as I can, or spend meaningful time in one place?
When you love to travel, it's hard to look at a map of the world — with its infinite places to see — and commit to staying in one place for a week. It can seem like adding more stops will make a trip better. But that kind of see-it-all travel is exhausting, and it doesn't leave enough time in any place to begin to understand where you are. A week in one destination, learning about it through the lens of a particular topic, is truly the most rewarding way to travel. Once you do it, you'll be hooked.
