In addition to what is available during the academic year, Colorado College students find additional opportunities for hands-on study during the "half-block" offered in January, this year running from January 6 through January 16. Students receive one-half of a normal course credit.
Colorado College combines the flexibility of the Block Plan -- in which students take and professors teach only one course at a time -- with the vast natural laboratory of the Rocky Mountains and desert Southwest.
The most popular winter course is Wilderness Responder. Wilderness Responder is designed to provide outdoor leaders, instructors, guides, ranger and wilderness and foreign travelers with the knowledge needed to deal with emergencies in remote settings. It is an 80-hour curriculum covering standards of care for urban situations with additional protocols for remote situations. Emphasis is placed on prevention and decision-making. Certifications upon successful completion include SOLO's Wilderness First Responder and American Heart Association's Adult CPR.
Students can go off campus when enrolled in the following courses: Tropical and Mayan Cultural Ecology in Belize, Orientation Perpignan Program (taught in France), Intensive Grammar Review in Mexico, College Aides in Colorado Springs, Teaching English as a Second Language, Mentoring At-Risk Youth, Peer Tutoring in Writing, Immigrant Communities in Colorado Springs, Drawing the Winter Landscape, Techniques in Photographic Printing, Short-Form Video Directing, and The Prison Industrial Complex.
Other courses offered during this year's half-block are: Global Perspectives in the K-12 Classroom: Using Japan as a Case Study, The Civil Rights Movement, Civilization: An Evolutionary and Ecological Perspective, Popular Culture, Histotechnique, Computational Chemistry, Drama Stage Management, Economics of the Environment, The Bible as Literature, British Humor on Film, Studies in Portuguese, Winnie the Pooh and Taoism Too, Catastrophic Geology: Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Movies about the Movies, Romans on Film, Wagner's "Ring," and The Dalai Lama of Tibet: Philosopher, Statesman, Monk.
Colorado College offers numerous opportunities for "field study," and owns a cabin in the mountains as well as a campus in the Baca region at the base of the Sangre de Christo mountains in the San Luis Valley -- ideal settings for environmental studies, literature, economics, or history.
The Colorado College Block Plan allows students to take eight courses between early September and mid-May -- the same number offered at any comparable institution. But instead of taking several courses at once, students are able to focus on one at a time. Each course is held during a three-and-a-half week session called a block. Most courses last one block; others may stretch for two or even three.
Established nearly 30 years ago, the Block Plan allows our students to devote their full attention to each class. Classes usually run from nine until noon each day, but there's no bell to bring a discussion to a sudden halt after only an hour. Students are free to let the debate lead where it may -- and it often spills out of the classroom, across the quad, and into the dining halls, dorm rooms, or even faculty homes. All CC classes are small, emphasizing participation and personal attention. Founded in 1874, The private liberal arts college enrolls about 1,900 undergraduates.
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