Course Code: SSP141, Units: 3, This course is Spanish for specific purposes for the health area. Its objective is to give health personnel, who have no prior knowledge of the Spanish language, the necessary tools to interact and interview a Spanish-speaking patient. During the four weeks, the student will acquire knowledge in the four linguistic skills, which will allow him or her to communicate in basic form with native speakers of Spanish. This course answers the question: How to get the student to make the necessary questions to a Spanish-speaking patient to complete the identification card in the medical file? For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SPN101, Units: 3, No previous knowledge of Spanish is required. The main goal of this level is to develop oral expression. Students should develop a basic ability to converse in simple, daily situations. Students at this level are exposed to a progressive format of basic vocabulary units in combination with the adquisition of appropriate grammatical structures. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SPN151, Units: 3, This is a Spanish communicative course whose specific goals are directed at students in the law enforcement fields that have little or no previous knowledge of the Spanish language who want to gain sufficient linguistic competence that will permit them to communicate with Spanish speakers in the specific context of their jobs. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SPN102, Units: 3, This course is designed for groups that have had at least 60 hours of Spanish and have a basic understanding of the language. In the four weeks of the course, students will progressively expand their knowledge of Spanish, integrating the development of the four skills with techniques and specific procedures that will promote the student's interaction in Costa Rican society. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SPN201, Units: 3, Spanish: Este curso está dirigido a estudiantes con dominio y conocimientos de los cursos básicos de Español o que cuentan con al menos 100 horas de estudio de la lengua. El objetivo primordial del curso es ampliar la competencia comunicativa del estudiante, tanto lingüística como sociocultural, en las cuatro destrezas por desarrollar: expresión oral, expresión escrita, comprensión oral y comprensión de lectura. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SSP241, Units 3, This course is of Spanish for specific purposes, designed for health personnel, who have taken a minimum of 100 hours of Spanish as a second language, in order to deepen knowledge of medical Spanish and improve communicative competence in specific situations with Spanish-speaking patients. This course answers the question: How to get the student to make a medical consultation to a simulated Spanish-speaking patient to complete the medical file? For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SPN251, Units: 3, This is a Spanish communicative course whose specific goals are directed at students in the law enforcement fields that have had a minimum of 100 contact hours of college level Spanish and want to gain sufficient linguistic competence that will permit them to communicate with Spanish speakers in the specific context of their specific fields. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SPN3050, Units: 3, This course is designed for students of Spanish as a second language who have reached a high intermediate or advanced level, according to international standards, and want to achieve a more specialized knowledge of this language. Among other things, identifies the key concepts in phonetics and phonology, and studies the articulation, graphical representation of phonemes and pronunciation of Spanish, including some variants of dialect. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SPN202, Units: 3, Spanish: Este curso está dirigido a estudiantes de cualquier nacionalidad cuya lengua no sea el español y necesitan mejorar su competencia comunicativa en situaciones con cierto grado de complejidad y fluidez. Se hace énfasis en el enriquecimiento del discurso contextualizado para las descripciones y la narrativa simples. Para tomar este curso debe tener asimilados los contenidos gramaticales del programa de los cursos. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: SPN210, Units: 3, Spanish: Este curso está dirigido a estudiantes de un nivel intermedio de español que tengan interés en lograr una buena comunicación oral. En este curso se pretende desarrollar destrezas como: expresión oral, expresión escrita, lectura y audición, se dará prioridad a la expresión oral. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Spanish Language & Literature.

Course Code: ENV3740, Units: 3, This course is an introduction to understand climate change, its causes,consequences and the effects is having on natural populations of plants and animals across the planet, including humans. Mankind is facing several problems due to climate change, and these effects may likely increase ine near future. As temperatures keep increasing, producing major effects on all habitat types, how can animals and plants adapt to such rapid changes? And what are we as humans responsible for global warming are dealing with it? Can we actually answer these questions? Do we have the knowledge to reverse the ongoing conditions, and if so, what is being done worldwide? Finally how is the political weather? addressing the climate change? For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Environmental Sciences.

Course Code: ENV4030, Units: 3, This course will examine agricultural and food systems from an ecological systems perspective. After establishing a foundation of basic ecological concepts (relationships and interactions between abiotic/non-living and biotic/living components of an ecosystem), different applications of these concepts to agricultural systems will be investigated. Consumption and production issues related to food system sustainability will be analyzed, and students will explore their own role in the food system. Field trips will provide opportunities for direct observation of (and interaction with)different approaches to food production and distribution in Costa Rica. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Environmental Sciences.

Course Code: POLS3420, Units: 3, This course will explore the dynamics of environmental management, environmental histories, policy, politics and ACTION in the case study of Costa Rica and beyond. It will study environmental history and policy at a regional and national level; it will explore the emergence of Costa Rica's cutting edge environmental politics and governmental commitments (the greening of the public sector and carbon neutrality and others); it will look back at Costa Rica's conservation history and critically review its conservation and sustainable development model; it will present an understanding of the 'state of the nation and region' in regard to environmental indicators (land use methods and statistics, deforestation and reforestation data, contamination and waste indicators); it will identify the individuals and organisations working on taking authentic action in environmental protection; it will take a close look at how government policy translates into practice by reviewing cases studies of community and grassroots action in forestry, organic farming, recycling, cooperatives, and women's environmental groups; and lastly, it will address some of central issues and challenges facing these activities and the resultant environmental conflicts. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Government, History, Peace and Conflict, Political Science, Public Policy Studies, Sociology

Course Code: POL3100, Units: 3, A general survey of the complex social and political heritage of Costa Rican society, examined through a comprehensive and multidisciplinary view focusing on the historical development and present day dynamics of economy, society, polity, natural resources and culture. Special attention will be given to present day issues of peace, democracy, environment, economic and political trends, population, and the emergence of old and new paradigms and ideological movements. Emphasis will be placed upon different topics during the course, according to students interests and current events emerging in Costa Rican society. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Government, History, Peace and Conflict, Political Science, Public Policy Studies, Sociology.

Course Code: COM3070, Units: 3, A multicultural, gender sensitive course designed for students who wish to learn strategies and techniques in thought and behavior transformations for conflict resolution. The course focuses on techniques to bring about positive focused changes through continuous experiences in community building and self-improvement. The course is based on the Alternatives to Violence Project; a program started in NY State in the seventies. CEPPA Foundation, Center for Peace Studies, has implemented this program in Costa Rica, Switzerland and other Latin American countries since 1990. Using a participatory and interactive methodology, emphasis is made on the following themes: Self-esteem and self-care, communication skills, cooperation, community building and conflict resolution, including mediation, bias awareness and cultural diversity. Mandatory fieldwork sessions will be conducted at a school, a communal group or a penal institution. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Communication.

Course Code: CTV3400, Units: 3, A multicultural, gender sensitive course designed for students who wish to learn strategies and techniques in thought and behavior transformations for conflict resolution. The course focuses on techniques to bring about positive focused changes through continuous experiences in community building and self-improvement. The course is based on the Alternatives to Violence Project; a program started in NY State in the seventies. CEPPA Foundation, Center for Peace Studies, has implemented this program in Costa Rica, Switzerland and other Latin American countries since 1990. Using a participatory and interactive methodology, emphasis is made on the following themes: Self-esteem and self-care, communication skills, cooperation, community building and conflict resolution, including mediation, bias awareness and cultural diversity. Mandatory fieldwork sessions will be conducted at a school, a communal group or a penal institution. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Film Studies, Media Studies, Radio/Television/Film, Theater, Visual Arts.

Course Code: ENV4040, Units: 3, This course is an introduction to sustainable development and its basic concepts focused in the neotropics and Costa Rica. General topics about environmental,economic and social problems and actions are discussed. Costa Rica is well known for its conservation policies and it intends to apply sustainable development concepts, according to international agreements. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Agriculture and Natural Resource Economics, Ecology, Environmental Science, Environmental Studies, Environmental Sustainability, Social Ecology, Wildlife Biology.

Course Code: ENV2500, Units: 3, This course is an introduction to genetics, focused on its applications in current issues related to the diagnosis of human diseases, paternity, taxonomy, ecology, conservation, agronomy and environment. After understanding the general concepts about genetics, research projects performed in Costa Rica will be presented and discussed, in order to understand what kind of questions science can answer using genetics as a tool. Field trips and laboratory practices will be engaged in as an opportunity to study how samples are collected, processed and analyzed in a biological context. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Environmental Science, Genetics.

Course Code: SOCY2100, Units: 3, This course will be providing to the student a general knowledge about law enforcement in Costa Rica, according to national and international legislation in constitutional and human rights. Critical analysis will be developed, and students will be able to generate conversations and discussions about different criminal policies between Costa Rica and their countries to contribute from their different areas in crime prevention. This course corresponds to the criminology area, it is a theoretical-practical course and it seeks to clarify the following question: How to use the law enforcement criminal policies of Costa Rica to contribute to crime prevention? For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Criminology, Government, Pre-Law, Public Policy Studies.

Course Code: ENV3020, Units: 3, The use of biological-molecular tools has revolutionized research in marine sciences in recent decades. These approaches offer extraordinary potential to address ecological issues in the marine environment, ranging from species identification to understanding of connectivity among populations. This course focuses on the use of molecular markers based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to highlight the importance of conservation genetics and the implications on a global scale to manage marine species in danger of extinction. Activities and conferences will be carried out at the CPI Biomolecular Laboratory (BIOMOL). In addition, students will experience field activities to understand some controversial conservation issues related to the endangered trapezoidal marine species in Costa Rica, such as sea turtles and sharks, gathering Tissue samples and later performing hands-on activities in the laboratory such as DNA extractions, PCRs, electrophoresis, and introduction to bioinformatics analysis. This is a theoretical-practical course and it seeks to clarify the following question: How to apply molecular biology techniques in addressing problems regarding the conservation biology of endangered marine species in Costa Rica? For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Marine Biology, Molecular Biology.

Course Code: PHIL3100, Units: 3, This course is an overview of the history and selected concepts in major eastern and western philosophical movements and systems from ancient to the middle age periods. Students will reflect on certain topics such as mind-body, Concept of God, knowledge of self and others, predestination and free will, cause and effect and other fundamental ideas in classical knowledge. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Philosophy, Theology.

Course Code: MGMT3020, Units: 3, This course provides an introduction to renewable energy resources and resource management, with anemphasis on the use of alternate energy sources such as solar, wind power, geothermal, and hydrogen. This course will consider society’s present needs and future energy demands, examine conventional energy sources and systems, including fossil fuels and then focus on alternate, renewable energy sources and how to manage them. We will cover the economic and social impact that both, conventional and renewable energy resources have on society. The students will have the opportunity to visit several projects related to hydrogen production’s plants, windmills and solar panels all national and multinational projects dedicated to the supply of energy. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Business, Business Management, Environmental Sustainability, Management Science.

Course Code: MGMT3000, Units: 3, This course will introduce the student to the services industry activity as a separate and distinct area of management. It will make to student aware of its powerful influence in competitive markets. It is thus designed to supplement basic marketing and marketing strategy courses by focusing on problems and strategies specific the services activity. Specifically, we will focus our attention on understanding four main areas: the service experience and the special characteristics of services, the satisfaction of service customers and the need to integrate marketing, human resources and operations within the service and the importance of customer management. Strategies used by successful service marketers will be discussed. The emphasis in the course will be on service in general rather than on any particular industry. It is designed not just for students who want to pursue a career in services industries but also in good industries with service components. The students will have the opportunity to visit several projects related to the service industry such as Amazon and Hallett Packard locate in Costa Rica’s Free Zones. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Business Management, Management Science .

Course Code: HIS3200, Units: 3, Sustainable consumption (SC) and production is a holistic approach to minimizing the negative environmental impacts from consumption and production systems while promoting quality of life for all. This course will help students acquire the knowledge, capacities and values to help them contribute to shaping a better tomorrow as more responsible consumers. It will trace the history and the justification for the focus on sustainable consumption. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Business, Environmental Studies, Ethics.

Course Code: ENV3044, Units: 3, This course will provide students with a general overview of tropical ecology. Students will gain insight about basic ecological concepts and be able to explore a variety of ecosystems, their animals and the multiple and complex ecological interactions that can be found in these areas. Costa Rica is a tropical country with an immensely rich biodiversity and for this reason a very representative area to these studies. Emphasis will be given to the study of the ecosystems found in Costa Rica, but others will be discussed as well. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Ecology, Environmental Science, Environmental Studies, Environmental Sustainability, Social Ecology.

Course Code: ENV3190, Units: 3, The oceans were formed between 4400 and 3500 million years ago, and they occupy about 71% of the Earth?s surface. Tropical seas hold the highest ecosystem and species diversity of the oceans. This course has been designed to introduce the basic concepts of oceanography, marine geology, marine ecology and marine biology, with emphasis on the interaction between species, between species and their environment and between ecosystems. It also provides information on the natural and human environmental impact, and the utility, management and conservation of the ecosystems. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Ecology, Environmental Science, Environmental Studies, Natural Sciences, Oceanography, Wildlife Biology, Zoology.

Course Code: HHD3070, Units: 3, Health service delivery today encounters frequent conflicts, disputes, and other difficult situations, many of them derived from larger changes occurring in the health systems of the world. These conflicts include differences due to multiculturalism; the appropriateness and quality of care; gender issues; power disputes and providers and recipients over institutional and funding policies. Violence, its effects and costs will be part of this course, particularly under the WHO definition and perspectives about violence in the world in general, and violence in Costa Rica in particular. The inter-institutional or meta-leadership carried out in San Carlos in the form of culture of peace is an important part of this course. In September 2013 they celebrated their 10th Festival of Culture of Peace in this area. This interactive, hands-on course offers a framework to integrate professional experience with functional communication and mediation skills. Students are encouraged to explore and develop their leadership into progress on matters of public health importance. Mandatory fieldwork sessions at a hospital, clinic, community or school end this challenging experienc For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Global Health, Health Administration, International Health, Nursing, Pre-Medicine, Pre-Nursing, Pre-Physical Therapy, Public Health.

Course Code: HIS3293, Units: 3, Costa Rica´s health care system is unique due to the fact that it´s socialized and has achieved excellent health indicators. The course focuses on the history and development of the public health care system within the context of the Costa Rican sociopolitical and economical situation. It also gives a strong emphasis on how the system actually works and points out not only the strongholds of the systems, but also it´s weak points. A third objective, of fundamental importance in order to understand this system, is the study of Costa Rica as a tropical country. Students will learn about the prevention and transmission of relevant tropical diseases. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Environmental Sustainability, Health and Exercise Science, Health Science, Nutrition and Food Science.

Course Code: HHD1020, Units: 3, Physical therapy ranks in Costa Rica and the USA as one of the most desirable careers. Physical Therapists play essential roles in today’s health care environment. They contribute along with all health care providers to maintain, restore, and improve movement, activity and health, enabling individuals of all ages to have optimal functioning and quality of life. During this course the student will learn history of Physical Therapy, PT core values and principles, mechanical principles applied to human body, an introduction to exercise therapy, massage therapy and physical therapists approach after a stroke. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Kinesiology, Pre-Physical Therapy, Sport and Leisure Sciences.

Course Code: HHD1070, Units: 3, This course introduces people on human nutrition, integrating basic concepts of sustainabilityscience with the study of human nutrition. No college-level science background is required; rather, the course will provide elementary aspects of the several socio-biological sciences that are needed. Its main aim is to provide a nutrition background that will help students make appropriate, informed choices from the vast array of foods available in today’s marketplace. This course is designed for the person who wants an introduction to nutrition and, who may later choose a major in it, or simply wants to improve his/her health and wellbeing, specially taking into account the impact that each one of us is making on Earth. Through this course each student will have a better overview of what nutrients are and what nutrients and foods do for humans; how healthy people can best get the amounts of nutrients and foods they need throughout their lifetime; how people –mainly in current times- alter foods and their nutrient content; and food and sustainability issues of current interest. This is one of the main courses of the CIPSS´s Health and Psychology area, its nature is theoretical and participative, and it seeks to clarify the following question: How to apply knowledge on nutrition for optimal health, while fostering sustainability? For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Environmental Sustainability, Health and Exercise Science, Health Science, Nutrition and Food Science.

Course Code: HHD1100, Units: 3, This course focuses on knowing and recognizing the basic biology, identification, classification, impact, and management, of insects that represent hazards to human health. To date, mosquitoes are the most dangerous animals around the world, with more deaths caused by mosquito-vectored diseases than from the attack of any wild animal. In the past several methods have been used to control the outbreaks of these insects, specially pesticide-based which in turn just aggravated the problem because of insecticide resistance. The tropics have been particularly affected by insects with human health impacts. For this reason, several private and public initiatives focus on developing ways to palliate these insects. This course will cover basic and applied aspects of Medical Entomology, with an especial focus on the ecological and socio-economic conditions of the tropics. This course will be based on field trips, talks, the study of multimedia, literature, visits and practical contact with people working on these subjects. Therefore, this course is aimed at any student with an interest in human health, biology, economics, sustainability, and anthropology. For a longer course description, click here. Subject Areas: Biology, Environmental Science, Environmental Studies, Global Health, Health Science.