University of San Diego
ER-12: Sustainability Immersive Experience

The USD Center for Community Service Learning provides immersive experience opportunities for students, focusing on issues such as human rights, poverty alleviation and sustainability. Through these immersions we are looking to provide a framework to nourish personal development, foster community engagement, strengthen organizations, and promote global dialogue. While such an experience can feel unsettling at first, through years of developing these experiences in Mexico, Jamaica, Guatemala and New Orleans, we’ve learned that such experiences can lead to heightened learning and growth that usually translates into: Greater capacity to engage in authentic relationships cross-culturally Greater capacity to reflect and break down stereotypes and assumptions Greater awareness of one’s impact on other communities Greater respect and compassion for the humankind as a whole Immersion trips are also carried out by Living learning Communities, which are resident student communities based on a common interest theme such as sustainability, cross-cultural experiences and social justice. A living learning community trip would be relevant to tackling or providing exposure to an issue related to the community theme.

See an example of an emmersive experience below https://www.sandiego.edu/cas/commstudies/news_events/news_detail.php?_focus=43505