Global Competence Certificate
A blended learning program that develops tangible global skills essential to live, work, and make a real social impact around the world
The GCC includes:
- Online modules with videos subtitled in multiple languages
- Online forum space for reflecting with peers from around the world
- Quizzes and assignments to ensure learners understand the materials
- A comprehensive training program for GCC Qualified Facilitators
- Guided reflection sessions run by a Qualified Facilitator
- Global Competence Certificate upon completion
About the Global Competence Certificate
The GCC empowers students and faculty with tangible global competence skills that are fundamental to building just and peaceful societies—and essential to live, learn, work and volunteer in diverse settings at home and around the world.
SELF-AWARENESS
AWARENESS ABOUT OTHERS
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
BRIDGES ACROSS DIFFERENCE
“Thanks to the GCC program, I grew stronger (and am still growing!) in my ability to form and maintain intercultural relationships.”
–Study Abroad Engineering Student from University of St Thomas
GCC at Home
In the GCC at Home, learners collaborate across difference through the online program that requires no travel. The GCC at Home brings into learners’ awareness that culture is all around us within our own communities.
Faculty members find the GCC guided curriculum, discussion topics and forums, interactive modules, and deep self-reflection a winning combination to develop the students’ intercultural learning.
“The GCC helps new attorneys discuss their values and perspectives and the values that are already inculcated coming into this profession and how people can perpetuate perceptions of the past. This program addresses implicit bias that influences the way we are. It raises awareness. Moreover, it gave an opportunity for students to discuss their responsibilities as they enter the profession without having to strip themselves of their identity or moral compass.”
–Professor Carl Warren J.D.
University of St Thomas Law School
Find out more about GCC at Home
GCC Abroad Version
GCC Study Abroad develops learners’ global competence before, during and after their international experience. The curriculum is delivered in 18 online modules supported by a Qualified Facilitator we train from your campus. The program can be customized to meet the needs of specific higher education institutions and study abroad programs.
The research-backed AFS Global Competence Certificate has been used by more than 10,000 university, intern and language abroad students in 50 countries to help them develop their intercultural competence and global skills before, during and after their international programs.
“My group who went abroad had impressive quantitative and qualitative results in terms of intercultural development. Both the IDI and the qualitative data showed that the group had a shift from a predominantly monocultural mindset to a more intercultural (global) mindset. Given these results and considering learners’ feedback about the program, I highly recommend the GCC.”
–H. E. Parker, Ph.D.
Assistant Director, Latin America/Spain Programs,
Global Engineering Programs and Partnerships.
The GCC asks learners to follow a different path...
“Nearly all organizations continue to design and deliver programs abroad on the assumption that participants learn simply through reading some things about culture before they depart, and then by coming into contact with the new and different after they arrive. The GCC asks learners to follow a different path, practicing core global competencies that allow them, over time, to learn to interact more effectively and appropriately with culturally different others. Kudos to AFS and Sentio for offering a certificate program that prepares people to live and flourish in an increasingly diverse and complex world.”
-Michael Vande Berg PhD, award-winning researcher, author, and speaker
What CEA appreciates most about the GCC:
- The flipped learning model makes it accessible to our students, with watching the videos to learn the online content before coming together in discussion sessions.
- The opportunity for our students to improve their chances of integration and cultural adjustment during their study stay.
- The focus on reflection and sharing of the individuals’ own experience in the discussion session and how the theory relates to the students’ actual experiences.
Emelyne Burkhard
Celtic English Academy, UK English language provider serving approximately 1000 students from up to 50 different nationalities annually
What Purdue University thinks about the GCC:
“My group who went abroad had impressive quantitative and qualitative results in terms of intercultural development.. Both the IDI and the qualitative data showed that the group had a shift from a predominantly monocultural mindset to a more intercultural (global) mindset. Given these results and considering learners’ feedback about the program, I highly recommend the GCC.”
H. E. Parker, Ph.D.
Assistant Director, Latin America/Spain Program,
Global Engineering Programs
Purdue University
Our GCC Partners
