LIU Global: Heredia - Study Abroad in Costa Rica

The Costa Rica Center is the gateway to the Global Studies degree program, providing students with the academic tools and field experiences necessary to grasp the relationship between Central America and the larger world. In this yearlong program, students engage with contemporary Costa Rica and travel throughout Central America, studying the local effects of globalization and making sense of its impact on the region’s people, politics, economies, and ecosystems. Students experience the ways in which the conquest of Indigenous America by Europeans 500 years ago and the forced migration of Africans continue to define the region. They also experience the ways in which governments, international organizations, entrepreneurs, and local communities are responding to the region’s ongoing engagement with global economic, cultural, and political forces. The program includes the intensive study of Spanish (offered at all levels), homestays with Costa Rican families, fieldwork at sites around the country, and extended study travel experiences to Nicaragua and Panama. 

Costa Rica has a vibrant and diverse culture that offers exciting learning opportunities. Although the country is about the size of West Virginia, it contains about 4% of the Earth’s biodiversity, with lush rainforest, high mountains, volcanoes, coastal plains, and beautiful beaches. The Costa Rica Center is in the university town of Heredia, which is located in the high central plateau on the outskirts of San José, Costa Rica’s capital city. The Center is near the city’s Central Park and about a mile from the National University.