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Study on a college campus in Mukono, Uganda!
Chat with classmates on campus at Uganda Christian University (UCU) as you munch on a “rolex” (a local snack of eggs and Chapati). Mukono is just 15 miles from the capital city of Kampala and offers students the opportunity to participate in Ugandan culture. All students take part in homestay experiences, which are described as unforgettable. Along with trips throughout Uganda, they will also venture on an eye-opening 10-day excursion to Rwanda. Students in the Uganda Studies Program choose from one of the following academic emphases: Social Work, Global Health, or Interdisciplinary. All options encourage students to participate in Ugandan life and explore the intricacy of cross-cultural relationships. Your most important Ugandan lessons will be in the relationships you build with others. At home, at school, and within the university, these relationships encourage deeper thought about your own cultural identity and how you engage with the world around you. UCU has over 6,000 students and Uganda’s renowned hospitality will help you form deep connections within the local community. Building upon the course Faith & Action, you’ll begin to place these diverse connections into context.
Just as at home, much of your spiritual life in Uganda will depend on the choices you make. Still, there are more than a few ways to experience Christian fellowship in this new setting. Fellow Uganda Studies Program (USP) students will be a learning community. Although some students will live with a Ugandan family for the semester, all students on the program form close bonds as they experience and process life in Uganda together. The USP community will be invaluable in helping encourage and support you. The UCU community provides various opportunities for worship and fellowship. From the more formal liturgical nature of the Anglican services to the lively and more personal fellowship groups, your experience will depend on your interest and initiative. Homestay students will have the opportunity to participate in the spiritual life of their families as well as attending their families churches and the broader Christian community will be significant to your experience. Your host family and other UCU students will be your first contact with Ugandan Christianity. In addition, you will have many opportunities to engage in your community both through your church and through informal relationships that develop.
In general, students find their semester in Uganda a time of significant spiritual growth, but not usually through mountaintop experiences. Instead, USP students find that encountering real questions, real injustices, and real cultural differences lead to a stretching and deepening of their faith. Coming face to face with questions that have no human answer encourages contemplation on the life and death of Jesus for ultimate answers.
Travelers are required to book a round-trip flight for this program.
The required travel insurance will be purchased on your behalf by SEU. The charges (approximately $40) will be placed on your student account.
`My time studying abroad in Uganda has shaped the way I think about the whole world, including myself. Living and studying abroad has helped me become a wiser, more compassionate, more humble, and more confident person. Nothing has shaped my faith and professional outlook like having an internship under a Ugandan supervisor, being taken care of by a Ugandan mama, and learning about the Ugandan church. God has created the whole world with immense value and beauty, and being fixated on only what we are familiar with is an offense to the Creator and to ourselves, but when we step out to learn from and study under foreign cultures, we are honoring not only how God made them, but how God made us as well.` — Lauren Nadolski - Spring 2014
