BCLA Student Experience
BCLA is all about finding community, exploring your interests, and discovering passions you never imagined. Get to know our academic programs and opportunities that spark your curiosity. We know you’ll discover the unexpected along the way. As you explore all that BCLA has to offer, you’ll see there’s no shortage of opportunities to dive into. There’s no limit to the paths you can follow here. But if none of them feel right? Create your own!
Engaged Learning
Engaged Learning is a form of service learning that provides students with hands-on experience in local nonprofits. Students take Engaged Learning classes for academic credit while engaging in organized service activities, guided reflection, and critical analysis, while helping organizations create change from the perspective of social justice.
Global Learning
Travel. Conduct research. Become an ethical leader and a global citizen by studying in a new setting and making real-world connections to course material. Global learning in BCLA encompasses courses and experiences that seek to engage and understand local, regional, national, and international communities and issues.
Undergrad Research
Explore a topic that you love or answer a question that you have. You can conduct independent research or join the research team of one of our excellent BCLA faculty. Research lets you build your critical thinking, writing, and presentation skills. These are skills that every employer wants and that prepare you for graduate school.
Learning Communities
Living Learning Communities (LLCs) are intentional educational communities where students who share a common interest or academic pursuit live and study. LLCs create a more academically and relationally supportive environment for students living on campus and enhance their residential and educational experience.
Internships
Internships give you the chance to apply your academic learning to real world situations and workplaces. You can even earn academic credit!
On-Campus Employment
Enhance your professional development and gain employment experience on campus. Student Employment Services offers part-time jobs, workshops, and student services.
Los Angeles
Through research, internships, and service, Bellarmine students make meaningful contributions to the creativity, culture, technology, and social innovation that define Los Angeles. The city provides a vibrant and immersive learning environment for students to explore their intellectual pursuits, passion for justice, and professional and life goals. BCLA engages local communities and organizations as partners in our curriculum, and together we work to provide students with opportunities that promote learning and development while also creating positive change.
Ignatian Way
LMU, as a Jesuit Marymount institution, is shaped by the principles and practices of Ignatian spirituality and pedagogy. An LMU education emphasizes faith-inspired values, fostering communities of belonging, inclusion, care, and support. It instills habits of service, guiding students toward holistic formation that encompasses personal growth, professional discernment, and spiritual fullness. This education recognizes the inherent dignity and humanity of all peoples, with a steadfast commitment to anti-racism and social justice for all.