May Term

May Term at Illinois Wesleyan University is a distinctive month-long experiential learning option where students focus on a single course or topic.

May Term is designed to stretch traditional boundaries between in-class and out-of-class learning.

Students choose from a variety of May Term courses ranging from study abroad and national study options, to course options outside the standard curriculum, to research collaborations and internships.

With this opportunity for immersion in learning, students may study contemporary and often controversial issues; travel to historical, commercial, or cultural sites in conjunction with a course; or attend lectures, concerts, or theatrical events related to a May Term theme.

Examples of recent courses taught on campus include:

• Economics: The Economics of Gender, Race, and Immigration
• English: Exit, Pursued by a Bear
• Music: The Gourmet Listener
• Literature & Culture: Russian Culture and Society Through Film
• Music: Song and Dance in Latin American
• Physics: Energy and Society
• Physics: Problems of Nuclear Disarmament
• Political Science: Politics in Literature
• Psychology: Animal Behavior

A sampling of recent May Term travel courses:

• Emperors and Revolutionaries: Chinese History through Travel
• Goethe Institute in Bremen: Germany
• War and Peace in Japan
• Tropical Ecology: Costa Rica
• The Asian Economic Miracle
• Tale of Three Cities: Bratislava, Prague, and Vienna — Cultures at the Crossroads
• Writing in Ireland
• Transcultural Nursing in Hawaii
• Business in the Pacific Rim