The Study Abroad Program has recently been making plans to take students to Kyoto, Japan and Florence, Italy in summer and fall of 2027.
Kyoto and Florence are two of four study abroad destinations that will be visited in 2027.
For winter and spring the program will be traveling to Athens, Greece and Seville, Spain.
With these trips, the Study Abroad Program is offering students a way to further their education overseas with a unique opportunity to gain credits towards their degrees, immerse themselves in a different culture and undergo personal growth.
Classes in Study Abroad make the learning process more engaging for students by connecting the locations to course material in a way that gives their concepts relevance.
Additionally, students will go on excursions to cultural landmarks and cities throughout the country.
Students from any accredited college or university are eligible to participate in Citrus’s study abroad program, though they must have completed at least 12 units and have a minimum 2.5 cumulative GPA to qualify.
To join, students must pay a $450 deposit by the program’s deadline. They must also pay a fee that costs around $4,000 depending that will cover everything except for the flight, food, entertainment and personal expenses.
Credits earned through study abroad courses can be used for transfer to UC/CSU universities. Students can also use Study Abroad to apply to scholarships.
Study Abroad advertises itself as an avenue in which students can learn to understand different cultures and examine themselves.
“I see it as a life-changing opportunity,” said John Morris, Study Abroad Specialist at Citrus College.
He said that participating in Study Abroad as a college student could “solidify your goals in life and your understanding of the world” and lead to the development of lifelong friendships.
43-year-old Angela Hopkins, who went to Florence in 2025, described the experience as “invigorating.”
“For me it was life-saving. It’s a year later and I’m still invigorated by the experience,” she said.
“You feel like you’re a part of something and you want to keep going. I want to keep traveling. I want to keep studying. I want to keep meeting people.”
Having experience in study abroad also benefits a student’s educational and professional career in the long-run by promoting career readiness, showcasing tangible skills and building independence. It can help people stand out to universities and future employers who value the soft skills that study abroad strengthens.
Patrick Borja, a business professor of Citrus College who will be joining the trip to Spain, can attest to this.
“One of the benefits of studying abroad is to be able to develop some sort of intercultural competence. We call that the ability to operate and communicate with different people in a different culture. A lot of employers value that experience,” he said.
“It helps people become more adaptable, be better problem solvers and it even helps develop their critical thinking skills because they’re operating in a different environment that has a different set of norms.”
Another skill that Study Abroad helps students develop is the ability to communicate and collaborate with others.
“You’re going to be meeting a lot of new people. You’re going to have to force yourself to be more extroverted, and I feel that when you’re continuing your academic career, that is going to be such a vital thing, especially if you’re doing major where you have to work with other people,” said Anthea Castillo, a transfer student in Cal State Fullerton who went to Study Abroad in fall 2025.
The Program’s first destination in 2027 is going to be Athens, Greece. It will take place during the winter from January 8 to February 6.
Two courses are going to be available for students to take as part of the program: Introduction to Archeology taught by Dana Keithly and Introduction to World Literature: Ancient-Early History taught by Nicholas Henson.
As part of the trip, students will be going on excursions for sight-seeing and cultural enrichment, including a cruise, a five-day outing to Olympia and Delphi and visits to famous Greek cities such as Mycenae and Thebes.
While there, students will be living in a tourist-class aparthotel in Athens and provided with an Athena Card travel pass for unlimited access to public transportation in Athens.
Students will also be taken on a guided tour around Athens and the Acropolis.
The program’s trip to Seville, which will go from February 18 to May 15, will feature similar activities and more courses for students to study.
The curriculum is going to cover four subjects in total: Spanish, Film, Business and Accounting.
The Spanish courses will be taught by Professor Lizbet Sanchez from Mount San Antonio College. Award-winning film maker and educator Professor Phillip Boland is going to be joining to teach students about motion picture, screenwriting and communications.
All classes related to business, such as ACCT 101 and BUS 132, will be headed by Borja.
“One of the unique things about Seville is that it was a major economic hub … so being able to introduce students to the economics and the business culture is completely relevant to what I’m going to be teaching in Seville,” Borja said.
For example, he spoke of potentially taking his accounting class to different businesses in the Seville area so that his students can observe the operations of real businesses firsthand and see how the concepts they’re being taught have practical application.
Things he plans to teach his students during the trip include budgeting, which may incorporate their personal finances, and how to navigate tax returns while in Spain through hands-on experience.
During the program students will also go on a two-day excursion to Granada and Córdoba that will include visits to the Alhambra and Mezquita. They will have the option to go on another excursion to Morocco.
Throughout the trip students will get ample opportunity to explore Seville, travel throughout Spain and visit nearby destinations in Europe.
Borja said that he’s personally looking forward to going to the major festivals that will be taking place while they’re there, namely the Féria de Abril (or the Seville April Fair.)
The trip to Kyoto, Japan will take place from June 20 to July 17.
Activities, excursions, accommodations, and curriculum have yet to be decided but the Study Abroad Program is actively looking for faculty and courses for the trip.
During the fall, Study Abroad will be taking students to Florence, Italy from September 3 to November 27.
More details about the 2027 program itself have yet to come out, but it won’t be the first time that they have gone to Florence.
Marketing major Anthea Castillo went to Italy in Fall 2025 through Mt. SAC and, to her, it was an enlightening and positive experience that she remembers fondly.
She said that she got to “experience something new everyday.”
“I swear you’re going to have a story to tell somebody no matter what,” she said.
Due to her creativity she spent the semester taking the art courses that they had to offer.
“I remember for our classes, we would get assignments where we had to go to a specific part of Florence to complete it. So one day you’ll be going to the Duomo and the next day you have to go to a museum. So no matter what you do, you’ll always be doing something new,” she said.
She went on excursions to places like Rome and Cique Terre, frequented the cafés of Florence, visited the mall and even got to go on a solo trip to the Czech Republic.
“I thought that the excursions were really fun. We got to have one in Rome, we got to go to the Vatican. We got to go inside of St. Peter’s Basilica. That was really cool,” she said.
Whenever Study Abroad goes to Italy they visit multiple locations related to art. One specific field trip that Hopkins remembers from her own experience is the one where they visited the open-air Tarot Garden in Tuscany that was created by French-American sculptor and painter Niki de Saint Phalle.
“We went to see the art exhibit by Niki de Saint Phalle. She worked with a lot of tile and mirrors … and if you pull pictures up, you’ll see [ the sculptures ], but actually being immersed in them was pretty incredible.”
Study Abroad provides many such opportunities for students who are looking to expose themselves to different cultures and grow as individuals in the process.
After Study Abroad, Castillo went on to transfer to Cal State Fullerton and was able to use the soft skills that she gained from her time in Florence to help her with her academic career.
As a marketing major, she had to learn how to collaborate with others and effectively communicate with them.
“And I feel that, studying abroad, I met so many wonderful people who I still talk to … and those connections were really helpful for my academic career as I got to understand how to cater to one’s needs,” she said.
Having gone to Study Abroad in the past, Borja has seen and helped multiple students come into their own throughout the weeks they’ve been out of the country.
“I enjoyed seeing the growth in them. In the beginning many students were quite nervous, being in a foreign country, and by the end of the 12 week period, you see their confidence levels increase,” he said.
Castillo is a prime example of one such case. She came to Italy as a naturally introverted person who had not lived on her own until then and left with a newfound independence and friendships that she maintained months after the fact.
“It kind of broke me down, but it’s built me back up in a good way,” she said.
“At first you’re gonna be terrified, I’m not gonna lie. You’re gonna be scared out of your mind and you’re gonna have to get used to a lot of different ways of life.”
She said that there was plenty of stuff that she wasn’t accustomed to in Italy, but the trail of getting used to her new circumstances helped her learn valuable lessons.
“I’ve learned how to live without AC. I’ve saved so much on my electricity bill, I’ll tell you that. I’ve learned how to work with other people … I’ve learned so much for the better.”
Hopkins underwent a similar transformation thanks to her time in Florence.
“It gave me confidence in my abilities,” Hopkins said.
When she gets overwhelmed by things, reminding herself that she managed to pull through the unfamiliar circumstances that she faced in study abroad helps her realize that she has what it takes to overcome the challenges life throws at her.
“That knowledge is something that you’re going to have for the rest of your life,” she said.
Morris said that he hopes that students joining study abroad will discover themselves and become more confident.
He believes that Study Abroad can help students discover the resiliency that resides inside of them as they succeed in navigating a foreign world.
“And when you discover that strength, you’ll say, ‘oh, what else can I do?’,” he said.
Students like Castillo and Hopkins were able to overcome the discomfort of the unfamiliar because Study Abroad forced them to adapt to the foreign and unknown.
Morris said that it’s important for students to have an open mind and be flexible when they go to a study abroad program because “things will be going wrong when you’re abroad, and you just need to appreciate things that are different, and you need to learn to pivot and change plans and improvise to survive.”
And yet when they travel to a new place, they’ll come to gain a more international perspective that’ll help them appreciate unique cultures and “recognize the vast commonalities of the human experience that are far greater than our differences,” Morris said.
“At the least, it’s just a really great experience and memory that you’ll have for the rest of your life,” he said.
Since Kyoto was approved at the Board of Trustees meeting on October 20, Study Abroad is in the process of finding faculty for it while Florence is still waiting for authorization.
Students can look out for more information about the development of those trips by signing up for the interest forms available on the Study Abroad page.
