Kalamazoo College is a private, selective liberal arts college with 1,443 students in Kalamazoo, Mich. It offers a nationally recognized individualized curriculum known as the K-Plan, providing opportunities for experiential education in domestic and international settings. The tenets of the K-Plan include: 1) Rigorous academics. The flexibility and rigor of K's curriculum provides students with a customized academic experience, maintaining a superior lifelong value, and few fixed general education courses; 2) Experiential education. Students connect classroom learning with real-world experience by completing career development internships or externships, participating in civic engagement and service-learning projects, and getting involved in social justice leadership work; 3) International and intercultural experience. Students choose from 42 study abroad programs in 24 countries across six continents; and 4) Independent scholarship. As the culmination of their learning, students explore a subject of their choice, resulting in an in-depth, graduate-level research thesis, performance or creative work known as a Senior Individualized Project.Kalamazoo College's diverse campus community, dynamic city and extraordinary outcomes make a difference in the lives of students. K is one of 40 schools honored in "Colleges That Change Lives," written by Loren Pope, a higher education expert and former New York Times education editor, who identified colleges that excel at developing potential, values and initiative in students, while providing the foundation for success beyond college.