Students can learn business strategies and explore foreign cultures by signing up for the three-credit International Business Experience elective course and get an experience of a lifetime while traveling in Eastern Europe.

The course is offered in the upcoming 2015 spring semester with Dr. Wagiha Taylor, and the traveling time will be through the spring break, Feb. 27 to March 8.

The course will include traveling to Krakow, Poland; Berlin, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic and Budapest, Hungry. The cost of the trip for students under the age of 30 is $2,715 and the cost for students over 30 will be $2,955. However, any student that signs up for the course before the end of February will receive $150 discount off the cost of the trip.

Taylor also helps out the students by allowing them to do a payment plan where students can pay a certain amount each month instead of paying the full amount up front.

The International Business experience course is not just for business majors, it is available to anyone who wants to get the travel experience and count it as an elective course. For business majors, this course can count as an internship as well.

The course includes only meeting twice throughout the whole semester, once before the traveling time so everyone gets to meet each other and then once after the trip to present a power point presentation of the experiences they had during their trip.

Students also hand in a five-page paper on what they learned while traveling to the foreign countries and of all the great experiences the students had while traveling.

This course is a hands-on experience of learning instead of learning in a classroom or through a text book.

“The purpose of the course is to create a global learning experience using Eastern Europe as a medium to facilitate the students understanding of the global business environment,” Taylor explained. “Presentations, discussions, travel, observations, and projects will provide the opportunity to demonstrate the student’s knowledge.”

Many students truly feel the International Business Experience is a great learning experience. Evan Miller, a Wilkes student, is taking the course for a second time this semester and feels it has become a great learning experience and has opened his eyes in many different ways.

“You do things you have never done before, see things you have never seen before and it really opens up your eyes to the world around you,” Miller said.

Fifty seats are open for the upcoming spring 2015 course, 25 undergraduate and 25 graduate students.

Contact Taylor at 570-408-4712 or at [email protected]. Students can also go sign up in Breiseth 112.