Romania Semester
Communism fell in Romania in 1989, but the Eastern European country still struggles with civic and moral apathy, corruption and hopelessness. New Horizons Foundation (NHF) aims to change that through youth clubs and camps that teach self-confidence, teamwork and trust. Northwestern’s Romania Semester enables NWC students to participate in NHF’s unique experiential education mission by interacting with Romanian youth as they learn about post-communist Eastern Europe.
Location: Lupeni, Romania
Participants live and study in Lupeni in the Jiu Valley, a depressed coal-mining region that is also breathtakingly beautiful. They also backpack in the Retezat Mountains and National Park and have other opportunities to travel, including to Bucharest and Transylvania—origin of the legend of Dracula, among other things.
Courses
- Romanian Culture and History
- Eastern Orthodoxy
- Sustainable Development
- Experiential Education
Site director/program partner
The Romania Semester’s site director is Dana Bates, founder and executive director of New Horizons Foundation . NHF is a Romania non-governmental organization dedicated to using adventure education and service-learning to rebuild the moral and social fabric among youth in post-communist Romania.
