When school is online, the world is your classroom!

As we launch our first international program since the Covid-19 Pandemic began, we want to take this opportunity to share our broader thinking as well as some of the specific criteria we used in deciding to offer this program. Student health & safety is and always will be our top priority as an organization.

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We are a mission-driven organization that believes international travel and experiencing different cultures is an important ingredient to a fulfilling life, both for what it teaches us about other people and places, and how it helps us appreciate what we have in the United States. We also believe that college age is a unique developmental period where many 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunities are more available and accessible than in other stages in life.

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We know that there is a diverse spectrum of risk tolerance and beliefs about what safety measures are reasonable during the pandemic for both healthy college aged students in particular, and also, how that demographic's choices might impact members of our communities who are more vulnerable to the virus. We don't expect everyone will agree with our assessments 100%, however, we hope that by detailing our thinking, students and their parents will be able to make their own informed decisions while understanding what expectations we will have for students in Costa Rica. We hope to share this experience with a group of students who are more or less on our same page, or at least reading the same book.

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We have been tracking the Covid-19 pandemic closely since January 2020 when evidence of community spread outside of China first emerged. Over that time, we have done our best to filter through overwhelming amounts of information while remaining skeptical of advice that might be politically or financially motivated. We prefer data backed and scientifically verifiable information, while trying to appropriately weight new information that might not yet hold a scientific consensus.

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As has always been the case in our risk assessment and analysis, we recognize that truly 100% guaranteed safety is impossible in our world. Instead, we must assess risks to student safety relative to a realistic alternative.