Experiential learning, community engagement, and student experience: Undergraduate field school course in rural British Columbia

Experiential learning enables students to bridge their learned skills and their professional life after university. Emphasizing the value of a social science degree, we argue that undergraduate students do not lack transferable skills, but rather they lack the realization of and confidence in applying these skills. Through a community-based field course, students not only build skillsthey use them in a real-world context. This paper reflects on a geography field course located in a town in British Columbia. The course encourages students to manage community partner relationships and exposes them to new approaches to learning, including forms of assessment. The impact of the field course was assessed through an online survey and a focus group. Although students find aspects of a field course challenging, the overall experience of this course was very positive. The success of the field school course was, and is, in enabling students to realize the value of their transferable skills.