Students Report Higher Levels of Learning with Amizade

Our 2010 student evaluations are in, and once again, Amizade programming continues to get exceptional reviews. An astounding 94% of students report having “good” or “great” experiences with Amizade. For students interested in transformative experiences, this is just the beginning of the good news.

The evaluations are clear; students self-report learning far more when taking part in an Amizade service-learning course than they do in a comparable credit-bearing course on their home campuses. 27% of students report having learned “more”, and an amazing 53% of students report having learned “much more” on their Amizade service-learning course. In fact, not one student in 2010 reported having learned less on an Amizade course than they do on their home campus. Not one.

In addition to learning, over 70% of students reported that their Amizade experience helped them clarify their career goals more than a traditional course. 90% of students rated their professors as “good” or “excellent”, and not one student gave a “poor” rating for a professor. Similarly, site directors were found to be “good” or “excellent” 97% of the time. Perhaps most significant was that students reported that their interaction with the local community was positive 100% of the time.

It is clear that the unique experience offered by Amizade service-learning courses offers a valuable and essential supplement to tradition education. Students’ experiences with Amizade enhance and complement their on-campus education enabling them to translate their education into a real world context and expand their global awareness.

Other key findings of our 2010 evaluations include:

• 94% of students report that they are better able to apply what they learned from their Amizade experience in the real world than a traditional class on their home campus.
• 88% of students report that they were more stimulated by the subject matter in their Amizade experience than on their home campus.
• 83% of students report that their service work was “good” or “excellent.”