About 1,200 Samford University students are enrolled in the school's Jan Term, the four-week winter term between fall and spring semesters. Classes began Friday, Jan. 4.

Many of the Jan Term students are studying at locations abroad. Eighty students will stay at Samford's London Study Centre during two two-week sessions. They will study such topics as British economic development, international capitalism, British entertainment culture, nursing in the British Isles, pharmacy and health in Great Britain, and Winston Churchill and World War II. A physics course will take advantage of unique British scientific locations such as the Royal Observatory and the British Science Museum.

A group of language students will study German civilization and culture and contemporary society, and ski the Austrian Alps while based in Germany.

On Friday, 19 students departed frigid local temperatures for the tropical climate of San Jose, Costa Rica, where they will study Spanish at Conversa language institute. During the total immersion experience, students will live with Costa Rican families and speak only Spanish for three weeks.

Other students are heading south to Central America and the Bahamas for courses in island ecology. In Belize, students will study natural history, coral reefs, medicinal plants and Mayan ruins. In the Bahamas, students will study ecosystems and the ecology of marine environments.