IFSA Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú Partnership

Looking for specific classes? Explore CHART, our exclusive class database — if the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú Program is pre-approved at your institution, you’ll find classes recently taken by other IFSA students.

The IFSA program in Lima offers two program classes designed exclusively for our participants, and allows you to enroll in other courses alongside local students at the prestigious Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). These classes, taught in Spanish by local professors, are intended to provide you with an understanding of the events and issues that make Peru what it is today.

• Advanced Academic Writing and Peruvian Culture (3 U.S. semester credit hours): This mandatory class helps participants reach and perfect competence at the advanced level in Spanish language, with an emphasis on oral and written skills on formal and informal levels. The class also emphasizes vocabulary and pronunciation. Discussions and weekly essays that focus in part on Peruvian and Latin American issues will be utilized.
• Peruvian Social Reality (4 U.S. semester credit hours): The purpose of this mandatory course is to help students reach a basic understanding of Peruvian social reality, identifying the major problems and conflicts, clarifying the relationship of the present situation in Peru to the most important social processes. While the course does not propose to offer a detailed analysis of specific issues, it does present the principal economic, social and political problems of the country in terms of an overall analytical perspective. The course will focus on an individual research project based on the experience of each student in an NGO, which focuses upon a specific social problem in the Peruvian context.

In addition to mandatory program courses, you will complete your courseload the PUCP alongside degree-seeking Peruvian students. PUCP publishes their course offerings online. Follow these steps to find courses that may be available during your semester or year abroad:

1. Review a list of subjects offered at PUCP. 
2. Click on the especialidad in which you are interested.
3. Click on the link for the plan de estudios to see the course offerings. For course descriptions, click on sumillas.

Please keep in mind that ciclo or nivel of a course does not indicate which semester the course is given. To determine when a course is being offered, please follow these steps:

1. PUCP course semester and level information.
2. Enter the name of the course in nombre del curso.
3. Select the appropriate term from the dropdown menu (i.e. "2018-2" corresponds to semester 2 2018) in ciclo de dictado de curso. 
4. Click on buscar to see if the course is being offered during the indicated semester.

If a particular course you are looking for is not listed, contact your program advisor for assistance. Course availability changes every semester. Note that if you have native or near—native Spanish reading and writing skills and would like to be considered for exemption from the Advanced Academic Writing and Peruvian Culture course, please speak with your Program Advisor

What the concentration has to offer:

• A curriculum focused on the psychology, law, anthropology and culture of gender in Peru
• Working with Peruvian women through community-based research or volunteer work
• Combination of program courses and university courses with gender foci

Community-based research and volunteer opportunities

• Casa de Panchita, an organization that supports domestic workers' rights
• PROMSEX, a women's organization that lobbies for sexual and reproductive rights
• Center for Peruvian Women Flora Tristan, a well-known feminist organization that focuses on women's rights and feminist studies
• Students will develop a research project based on their work with an organization listed above

• Assist afflicted groups such as domestic workers, women and children, through a variety of activities in impoverished sections of Lima
• Support the Children’s Hospital of Lima with providing recreational activities and events for families of long-term hospitalized children
• Play an active role within the world of education and community building by assisting local schools with initiatives on a wide variety of topics or by helping Fulbright or EducationUSA in developing presentations on the U.S. higher education system
• Participate in one of the longest running archaeological excavations in Lima, a 1500 year old site in the middle of the city, either through excavation efforts or cataloging information already discovered on site
• Utilize event planning skills by organizing environmental awareness initiatives at Católica University