91社区

USF in London

Program Leader: Benjamin Scott Young

Spend your summer in one of the most dynamic and diverse cities in the world. The USF in London program is a four-week, six-credit immersion based in the heart of the city during the Summer B term 鈥� an opportunity to live, learn, and lead in a global metropolis where history, creativity, and innovation meet.

Join Dr. Benjamin Scott Young's Honors course, London Walk: Generous Leadership and the Science of Experience 鈥� a course that blends cultural exploration with cutting-edge contemporary research into how we perceive, learn, and make meaning. The city itself will be your classroom as you explore its parks, theaters, museums, markets, and neighborhoods and reflect on how place, story, and embodiment shape human experience and the possibilities for a generous leadership.

London鈥檚 iconic cultural landscape provides the backdrop for this transformative experience. Program excursions include, for example, the British Museum, Tate Modern, Regent鈥檚 Park, and a live performance at Shakespeare鈥檚 Globe Theatre. You鈥檒l also enjoy a traditional British tea on a River Thames cruise, and receive a two-day London Pass granting access to more than 90 landmarks 鈥� including the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul鈥檚 Cathedral, Hampton Court Palace, and Windsor Castle.

Beyond these guided visits, you鈥檒l have the freedom to explore independently and in small groups. Students will reside in central London, surrounded by vibrant caf茅s, gardens, and historic landmarks 鈥� perfect for spontaneous adventures with friends and quiet reflection on your own unfolding experiences.

Whether you are drawn to art or architecture, history or health, neuroscience or psychology, the lived ethics of global citizenship, or simply fascinated by the nature of experience, British culture, travel, and/or the possibilities of a flourishing future, USF in London offers a rare opportunity to bring these interests together 鈥� regardless of your major or professional path. Here, intellectual exploration meets lived experience, and academic learning moves with the rhythms of the city.

Step into London鈥檚 unfolding story 鈥� and discover how to navigate, interpret, and flourish within a world that is always becoming. Honors students from any discipline who wish to immerse themselves in the rich history and diverse tapestry of global culture that defines London will find in this program not just a summer abroad, but a transformative journey of learning, leadership, and lasting connection.

Coursework

Summer B | June 29 - Aug. 7, 2026

In addition to enrolling in one of two possible sections of the Honors course (IDH4950), participating students will also take one other course of their choice taught by a USF faculty member. For a full list of these courses, .

Honors Course IDH 4950 鈥� London Walk: Generous Leadership and the Science of Experience

What does it mean to lead generously in a city that never stops moving?

In London Walk: Generous Leadership and the Science of Experience, the city itself becomes both classroom and collaborator. As you walk its parks, galleries, and historic streets, you鈥檒l explore how perception, meaning, and belonging are shaped through movement, attention, and relationship. Integrating neuroscience, psychology, and phenomenology, the course invites you to study the science and art of experience in real time 鈥� learning not only about the world, but through it.

At the heart of the course is the idea of Generous Leadership 鈥� leadership rooted in a hermeneutics of generosity: the practice of interpreting experience as a creative and ethical act of co-participation. Generous leaders cultivate understanding not by asserting control, but by fostering meaning, connection, and care in complex, unpredictable environments.

To do so, you鈥檒l learn and apply The Experience Prism, a meta-phenomenological interpretive tool that refracts lived experience into three interwoven dimensions:

• Project: Our unfolding stories and purposes,
• Practice: Our learned habits and interpretive heuristic, and
• Soma: Our embodied, sensory, and emotional ground.

Together, these facets help reveal how we make sense of ourselves and others, and how that sense-making can be cultivated toward flourishing.

Our investigation begins with the science of experience, explored through contemporary frameworks in neuroscience and psychology. You鈥檒l engage with the principles of Predictive Processing and Active Inference, which describe how the brain continually anticipates and updates models of the world in the ongoing flow of experience. We鈥檒l also explore Integrated Information Theory (IIT), a novel approach to the 鈥渉ard problem of consciousness鈥� that explores how experience may emerge from integration of information across complex systems. Woven together with phenomenology 鈥� the philosophical study of the structures and textures of lived experience 鈥� these approaches illuminate how perception, emotion, and imagination arise as dynamic processes of interpretation, grounding leadership not in abstraction, but in the embodied intelligence of experience itself.

Learning unfolds through walking. London becomes our living studio 鈥� its museums, gardens, and markets transforming into festivals of experience. You鈥檒l explore the city through music on a soundwalk in Regent鈥檚 Park, engage in dialogues of perception with modern art at the Tate, and encounter the timeless insights of Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre on the Thames. You鈥檒l also help shape our shared itinerary. Working in small groups, you will design and lead a facilitated excursion to a destination of your choosing in the city 鈥� applying the interpretive principles and techniques developed in the course.

Through these embodied encounters, walking together becomes an art of discernment: a way to integrate sensory awareness, cultural understanding, and reflective thought in motion. London serves as both metaphor, playground, and laboratory 鈥� a proving ground for the real-time skill of leading and making meaning and decisions with others amid uncertainty, the defining condition of human experience in a complex world.

Your journey will cultivate four interconnected forms of growth:

• Personal Well-Being: Deepen reflective attention and embodied presence through stories, habits, and embodied sensations.
• Professional Development: Translate insights from neurophenomenology and field experiences with collaborative teams into adaptive leadership, decision-making, and innovation.
• Community Leadership: Practice generous interpretation in group settings, fostering empathy, dialogue, and shared understanding across difference.
• Global Learning: Experience London as a microcosm of interwoven worlds 鈥� art, politics, ecology 鈥� developing cultural intelligence and ethical imagination for global citizenship.

By the end of the course and program, you will have made meaningful progress towards  鈥渨alking wisely in a complex world.鈥� Generous Leadership is not about control or perfection; it is about enhancing our skills of presence, care, and creativity in motion together 鈥� the art of meeting life鈥檚 surprises with clarity and grace. In London, you will practice not only seeing the world anew, but participating in its continual becoming.

Program Dates

Summer B 2026 | June 30 - July 30, 2026

• Applications Open: First week of fall 2025 with rolling admission based on IDH course availability.
• Applications Close: Dec. 1, 2025
• Course dates: June 29 - Aug. 7, 2026
• Travel dates: June 30 - July 30, 2026

Program Cost

• 2026 Program Cost: $6,177.00 + USF tuition and fees

Accessibility

This program involves significant walking in urban terrain. More broadly, England has many unevenly paved sidewalks and hills. 

"I highly recommend being a part of the USF London for a hands-on experience! Our Honors professor promoted interacting with nature, museums, and a variety of fun activities such as attending a Shakespeare play in The Globe Theatre." 鈥� Mridula Singh

---

MORE ABOUT THE TRIP

Want to learn more? Listen as Honors students Cynthia Nelson and Jordon Myrick share details about the USF in London study abroad program.

---

Browse More Honors Study Abroad Programs