A student walks upside down on an ancient Roman road called the Appia Antica, during Shakespeare in Rome J-Term trip.

In Nicaragua, students study ecology and volunteer in rural medical clinics.

Students traveled to Japan for the course Food, Politics and Policy during J-Term 2011.

Professors announce trips for J-Term 2012.

Students studied Biodiversity, Brains and Behavior in Costa Rica during J-Term 2011.

A trip to Arizona combines lessons in digital photography and biodiversity.

Students have traveled to more than 25 countries for J-Term, including Turkey.

On-campus courses allow students to focus on a single subject, including children's literature and art.

Students make collages with food wrappers in the on-campus course, "Food, Fitness, and Kid's Fiction."

J-Term at Carthage

What is J-Term?

Read about J-Term 2012

J-Term, or January Term, is a special month-long period of study in January in which Carthage students explore subjects outside their majors or minors, discover new interests, and test their creativity through classes held both on campus and around the world. It's a month to experiment, create and dream.

During J-Term, students travel to rainforests, islands, deserts and excavation sites for hands-on biology, geography, history and archaeology lessons that can’t be taught in the classroom. Other students stay on campus for innovative course offerings. They may build telescopes, create museum exhibits, stage operas, study forensic science, or prepare for law school.

Students must complete two J-Term courses during their time at Carthage, although most Carthage students choose to participate in J-Term every year.

Recent J-Term Courses

• Tropical Ecology of Costa Rica. This biology trip took students to Costa Rica, where they spent their days tracking, observing, identifying and collecting specimens from the wild.
• Movies on the Edge: Close Encounters of the Cultural Kind. Students studied international feature films produced over the last 80 years to examine what happens when disparate cultures come into contact with one another.
• No Idle Hands: The Social Context of Knitting. In this popular course, students learned basic knitting concepts while exploring the links between knitting, spirituality and creativity. Read more.
• Good Vibrations: The Science of Music. In this physics course, students created instruments, studied the physical groundwork of music, examined the workings of the human ear, attended a concert to determine decibel sound levels and visited a professional radio studio.
• Geography and Biology of Nicaragua. For the past seven years, a group of students have addressed medical needs in a remote region of Nicaragua, while also studying the area’s biology and geography with kayaking and hiking trips.
See slideshows and learn more about past J-Term courses.

Be Adventurous.

Do something wonderful. Do something outside of your realm. Whatever it takes, do it.

And be a little bit afraid of what you're going to take and where you're going to go. ... You should be a little afraid, because that's the excitement."

— Prof. Laura Rodman Huaracha on J-Term