How Miami Dade College teaches students to learn, live in a bilingual world

Muriel Sarmiento was brought to the United States as a teenager with her immigrant family from Venezuela. She struggled in high school as she grappled with a new language and culture, keeping to herself because she was afraid of others making fun of her heavy accent. Her school experience in the U.S. changed dramatically when she enrolled in Miami Dade College’s dual-language program, one of the few of its kind in the nation. Students can take several classes in Spanish, like biology or philosophy. The program is a part of the Honors College and is exclusively offered at the Eduardo J. Padrón campus in Little Havana.