COR 3890 Buen Camino: Finding Meaning and Purpose on The Way

 This course is about physical and metaphorical journeys and pilgrimages, and finding our meaning and purpose on those journeys, via a travel-embedded, experiential learning-based course. Spain’s “The Way of St. James”/Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage route that dates back centuries; people walked it for religious, political, spiritual, physical, social, as well as a multitude of other reasons. It was, and still is, a journey requiring physical and mental fortitude to battle one’s limitations, as well as nature’s, but as the adage goes, “the Camino provides.” Everyone’s Camino is individual, yet supported by centuries of pilgrims searching for transformation. Akin to the “hero’s journey” (Campbell, 1949), we will read, travel, be transformed, and return home with newfound learning. If that transformation occurs and what it might look like will be uniquely individual; we will open ourselves to the possibility of transformation by fully immersing ourselves in the physical, mental, cultural, social, and spiritual journey while walking the Camino.