Location
  • United States of America
Program Tags
Adventure Travel Cultural Immersion
Apr 06, 2021
Jun 05, 2018
1 traveler is looking at this program

About Program

Explore the Southwest of the United States and work with the Hopi and Navajo native communities to learn about the realities of energy production.

Note: This Carpe Diem Education semester program is no longer active.

This program is no longer offered. View more programs from Carpe Diem Education.

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Scholarships

Carpe Diem Education Scholarships

Carpe Diem Education awards $30,000 annually to support diversity and inclusion in its programs. The Access Scholarship provides up to $5,000 for a gap year semester or full-year experience. The Inclusion Scholarship offers up to $2,000 for a gap year semester. The Carpe Mundi Scholarship is for Portland-based students. Grants are mostly need-based, and applications open in January.

Program Reviews

5.00 Rating
based on 3 reviews
  • 5 rating 100%
  • 4 rating 0%
  • 3 rating 0%
  • 2 rating 0%
  • 1 rating 0%
  • Housing 4.35
  • Support 5
  • Fun 5
  • Value 4.35
  • Safety 4.35
Showing 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Default avatar
Dylan
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Carpe

It was an amazing time traveling Central America, however some of the locations could have been more thoroughly vetted. There where a couple locations that felt either poorly planned or downright unsafe. And we where going to some of the places for the first time which didn’t help
It was an amazing time traveling Central America, however some of the locations could have been more thoroughly vetted. There where a couple locations that felt either poorly planned or downright unsafe. And we where going to some of the places for the first time which didn’t help

23 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
Nicholas
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

The Carpe Mundi Way

My name is Nicholas Hughes and I recently returned from Central America's Nicaragua.
Carpe Diem is a great way to start traveling the world! They provide safe housing and there is always something to laugh about at the end of the day!
Carpe Diem also provides their students to have an experience unlike any other study abroad program.
For me the most experiential place we went to was a permaculture farm that kept us for 10 days.
I had the chance to live with the land and interact with local Nicaraguans. I actually learned that I this program helped me figure out that I want to take native knowledge from other parts of the world and apply their practices to the developed world!
Also its affordable for what you might find in another program.

What would you improve about this program?
There is not much as to how Carpe Diem could improve their way of education.

I would say that a big turn away for some people is that Carpe Diem is a non-drinking and no drug program. If you can't go 3 months without drinking then you will have to look else where to travel.
27 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
Tom
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

One of the best experiences you can have in life!

My name is Tom Hebert and I was enrolled in the Indigenous Americas program of Carpe Diem Education in the fall of 2013. The experience of living on the reservations and getting a firsthand education on traditional Indigenous cultures and modern issues the tribes are being forced to cope with or to resist is not something one can accurately learn about through a textbook or a classroom. Simply listening to a Native voice and hearing the inflections of pain, anger, and resilience regarding certain topics is enough to give a student the chance to learn about what really matters to numerous peoples who have been forced to fight to protect their way of life for centuries and who remain strong in the face of all hardships which have been cast against them. They are peoples who need allies in their fights and it is through programs such as Indigenous Americas that non-Natives can truly learn how vital allying with the tribes in their conflicts is both for the Indigenous as well as for the country and the world as a whole.

One of the other major benefits of a program like Indigenous Americas is that it thrusts students into environments and lifestyles which they may not be accustomed to. In this way, students learn about themselves and often find that they can achieve much more than they believed possible before departing for the southwest. Personally, my spirituality was enhanced by my experiences on the reservations as was my self-confidence and my understanding of what I am able to accomplish physically. I believe that such realizations benefit anyone and everyone who undergoes them and that Carpe Diem is one of the best sources for unlocking that individual potential which is so often hidden behind masks of doubt and despair. I highly recommend Carpe Diem as a whole and the Indigenous Americas program specifically to anyone who wishes to receive an education which cannot be garnered anywhere else and to anyone who desires to know just how powerful he/she truly is, both mentally and physically.

I’d like to end this review by addressing the often-held belief that in order to explore and see the world in new and different ways, one must travel outside the United States to the far corners of the Earth. Life on the reservations of Arizona and New Mexico is so different from what many mainstream U.S. citizens are accustomed to. The Natives of that region have entirely different understandings, beliefs, and histories than mainstreamers and as such, being an outsider on the reservations allows you the rare chance, especially as a white person, to experience life as a minority in a strange land without need of a passport. And it provides an invaluable lesson on current and historical aspects of the United States which are rarely reported on but which may arguably form the backbone of this nation. Through no medium other than the direct conversations with tribal members which this program allows you to have will most people truly begin to understand the complex and intertwined histories of the U.S. and the hundreds of tribal nations which preceded it. That, I guarantee you.

What would you improve about this program?
I'm honestly not sure how it could be improved, but the one difficulty I think everyone in our group encountered was being around each other for the better part of most days during this program. After a couple months of peace, it became somewhat grating when you couldn't get enough alone-time and tempers flared more than once because of it. As I said, I honestly don't know how to improve this nor do I believe this issue is restricted to Indigenous Americas, but that was the one difficulty I really experienced during the journey.
19 people found this review helpful.
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