Program Reviews

I did this semester in Tanzania way back in 1995. In addition to opening my eyes to real-world integrated conservation and development, it helped me grow as an independent learner.

From the start, the program helped us build basic field skills- from getting around in Arusha and elsewhere to doing wildlife tracking and walking transects. The program had a good curriculum to complement the field components as well.

Just under a decade later, after graduate study at Brandeis and some environmental work, I returned to Tanzania to do my PhD field work in Dar es Salaam. I even remembered how to speak Swahili (with a little practice with strangers on buses ("dala dalas").

The practical skills and emotional resilience that the SIT semester taught me helped me get through all the roadblocks and setbacks I ran into. I knew the country, the language, and the culture by then. Adapting to difficult situations and working with people to overcome challenges was critical for the completion of my PhD fieldwork. My SIT semester was priceless.

I'm now an independent water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) professional who provides research and proposal writing support to NGOs and donors (USAID, World Bank, UNICEF). I write about all things water, sanitation, and international development at my blog. Feel free to say hello.

Ed
http://www.edbourqueconsulting.com/blog/

I cannot say more positive things about SIT and this program in particular. As a biology major, studying abroad in the tropics is a must, especially if you're interested in biodiversity. When I was considering programs, I was hesitant at first to go to Panama because it did not seem like an obvious choice. However now, I don't regret it at all. All SIT programs are incredibly well structured and defined - the courses follow the syllabi posted on the website very well and you will get a day-by-day calendar schedule of where you will be and what you are doing. SIT is also more "legit" in terms of its academic rigor - I spent a lot of time (especially on excursions) in class and in the field. The tropical ecology and related field methods course allowed me to learn from and do research with Panamanian scientists who are the best in their field in Panama/the tropics and oftentimes are affiliated with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The ISP, or Independent Research Project component of the trip gave me a unique opportunity to develop and propose my own project and was great preparation for writing scientific papers. We also had five homestays that were really amazing and manageable even for me, who came in with no prior knowledge of Spanish. You also take a Spanish class which is more like small-group tutoring, which improved my language skills immensely. The hands-on, experiential academic and cultural experience really immersed me into the ecosystems and cultures of Panama. I was taken out of my comfort zone, made life-long friends, and really developed my skills as a biologist. I wouldn't hesitate to do this trip again!

After completing my semester in Peru, I told myself and my host families I would return before I turn thirty. Essentially, my time in Peru was a healthy balance of school life and personal development. The dynamic of indigenous peoples and globalization being put into question, created an expansive space to learn. The seminar classes often brought in professors and experts to complement the theme of the day. For instance, if we were talking about Communism and campesino communities, the professor brought in for the seminar would have extensive knowledge on the topic. The variety of excursions also opens your eyes to the rich diversity of Peru. Diversity in every sense of the word: ecological regions, traditions, indigenous languages and dialects, etc. Living with host families was something I always wanted to accomplish and thanks to SIT, I had several host families. My main host family was in Cusco (they were amazing) and I had other host families for the longer excursions and my Independent Study Project (ISP). The program tries diligently to have you succeed inside and outside of the classroom. The people in my program allowed me to make genuine friendships and a fun social life.

I highly recommend this program. I am a native Spanish speaker, and a Latin American studies major. However, this program accommodates anyone who wants to learn or improve their Spanish, as there are three different sections into which language classes are divided in order to provide helpful learning environments. The people in my group also had different majors and many of them focused their independent projects in topics associated ranging from Political Science to Art, Women's Studies, English, Music and Audio Production and Media Studies.

This experience, the classes, the field trips, the guest speakers, and the independent project, provided me with tools and resources I could not have otherwise accessed at my home institution or on my own. My favorite part of the program was probably the field trips and the people we spoke to while on them. In this program you spend time in the countryside, in the Caribbean coast, and in Cuba. All of these opportunities, along with the main course curriculum and the guest lecturers, help you prepare for a month long independent project. For this project, you find a mentor with the help of the professors and administrators, and can go anywhere in the country to conduct your research. You are given a stipend and must check in regularly in order to update administrators on your wellbeing and progress. This was the closest I have been to writing a thesis and cannot express how helpful it was to undergo the research process as vigorously as I decided to.

The mentor I had was extremely helpful and generous with their time. They gave me the contact information of people I could reach out to for my research, and the resulting conversations were incredibly informative and valuable. I was excited to be talking to people who wanted to share their views and histories with me, and often, I got the chance to do the same as well.

The readings and assignments are sometimes media oriented, which was very interesting, and we got to meet prominent leaders of feminist, environmental, revolutionary, and other key groups in the country, and the same goes for the time in Cuba. These guest speakers would come to our classes and provide lectures and discussions. This is an invaluable resource to understand current dilemmas and challenges, often rooted in colonial and neocolonial conflicts.

The homestays were lovely and although it is a very different experience from living on your own or in dormitories, it was refreshing to me to spend down time at home and with a family to share thoughts and learn from. Our language assignments encouraged us to start conversations about our host familiy's perspectives and experiences, and this helped me grow closer with them and also learn from my peers' experiences in their own host households.

Overall it is one of the best choices I have made and I can't wait to go back and catch up with the people I met there and learned so much from.

By my title I mean that this program and experience in Chile is one that if you allow it will challenge you to fully explore your sense of adventure and ability to truly sit and revel in the moments that make up the fullness of life. It allows you to, in the opposite sense of the phrase sit back, jump in and engage and let your mind and curiosity wander wherever they are drawn. SIT provides you with the the kind of rigor whose rewards are invaluable and everlasting. This program is structured in such a way that you very much make of your experience what you want. You have the ability to take your time abroad in whatever directions you feel. But the other incredible part of this program is it surrounds you with so many invaluable resources and such support that you can take leaps and bounds if you are driven to. It also is such that simply being in Chile, immersed in the beauty of the countryside, the rich history and the vibrant and incredible culture, provides you with such inspiration that the passion you enter with, if allowed to, will simply grow and multiply in ways you didn't know it could. Interpret it as you wish, but I came out of my abroad experience with more questions than I did answers to the questions I posed to myself when first entering into the experience.

As far as specifics:
On Education:
Education happens outside of the classroom and that education is fantastic. The education that happens inside the classroom is, yes very much on interesting and relevant topics, but is the traditional lecture at students and in this way not as engaging and eventful as experiential and other types of education that nurtures more dialogue. Nonetheless constant classes in Spanish do very much help your language skills. Outside of the traditional classroom the learning experience is very much boundless. You are the decision maker in how much you want to challenge yourself to think and grow in new ways and how much you want to explore and come to understand. Through these lessons you learn an invaluable perspective and way of living.

On the Administration of the Program:
The administration, the director and people who make this happen that you see from day to day, are some of the most kind hearted and thoughtful people. They truly make your experience. They also understand you as an individual and a student. They recognize that the experience of being in Chile and exploring it is where the real learning is and for this they support you in those kinds of activities and don't expect you to spend 100% of your time sitting in a library studying.


On Housing:
Host family experience: I made such a strong connection with my host mom. She truly became a very special person to me. She also helped so much with making my experience a meaningful one. She gave value and depth to my time in Chile. You simply have to be upfront about any needs but also be flexible and understand that you will miss somethings and just have to wait till you return to enjoy them.

On the Food:
Nooot my favorite. In general Chilean food does not know what spicy natural flavor is. I missed the burritos and tacos from back home in Southern California and just in general a more balanced diet. Lots of carbs and not many vitamins and minerals through those leafy friends. So just get ready you might leave the country looking a little more like a pillow than when you came. Although empanadas are near and dear to my heart heart after living in Chile and the best news is you can't walk longer than a minute without finding one to buy.

On Social and Cultural Integration:
This program is incredible in the sense that you spend a significant portion of it traveling and living with different groups of Chileans. This within itself gives you so much cultural integration. You have to try a little harder to break through into social culture with Chilean youth though if that's what you are intending to do, since you aren't around them all the time in classes or anything like that. Make an effort to join clubs and do things that would draw the people you would like to get to know in Chile, but go to the locations and events where you would be able to talk and meet people. It for sure is possible, but it is also somewhat up to you.

On Safety:
Use your head and follow your gut and don't let anything else hold you back. That was my mentality throughout my time in Chile. I never had any problems safety wise. Listen to people who have experience on what areas are ok and which are not. There very much are areas where it is unsafe to go where you will most likely be robbed. But don't go there or leave everything of value in a safe place. I would say the administration is very aware of both your safety and your independence and desire for adventures and cares for you with all in mind. Keep your head on straight, while still dancing around in the clouds and discovering things you never knew you'd would and all will be well.

This program was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I met such amazing people – host family, program staff, other students, etc. Valparaíso is such a fun and vibrant city, and I had a great time living in the city and learning about Chilean culture and history. Definite highlights were the trip to a Mapuche community, improving my Spanish, and getting to explore Valpo with the friends I made. My advice is to let yourself immerse in and adjust to the Chilean lifestyle in order to get the most out of your experience. I can't recommend this program enough, as it blew away all expectations I had for my semester abroad.

I would recommend this program to anyone studying a humanity, but especially to those interested in human rights work and social justice movements. This program connects you to some powerful folks in the community, and you create some meaningful connections with active members in the community working to change one of the many problems facing Chile due to an unfair constitution put into effect during the dictatorship (or maybe working to change the constitution itself). You also get to see the very north of Chile (Arica and Putre) and the south in and around Temuco; during those excursions, we learned about the Aymara (in the north) and the Mapuche (in the south). It is honestly such a crazy experience to be able to see such different ways of life, along with their philosophies in life and what they believe our universe is. If anything, this program is eye-opening and humbling; you get to do some community work as a group up in the hills of Valparaíso, meet incredible human rights activists working towards a better Chile, learn about the country's struggle to reconcile with its past, and above all, immerse yourself in rich, Chilean culture.

This program is for the curious, the ambitious, the motivated, and the wanderers seeking new adventures at every corner.

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Personally, I am half-Chilean, and I went to be able to study my family's experiences with the dictatorship. If you're reading this and also have Chilean roots, PLEASE consider going. Study abroad is often advertised as the student going to an unfamiliar place, but for me it was a chance to understand where I come from and seeing the full side to my family's history. Even if you're just a Latinx student, studying abroad in your own culture is something absolutely surreal, and life-changing for sure. Consider taking this chance to do it.

My semester abroad was an incredible experience. What I loved about SIT was the format of the program. It's split into three parts. The first month, you spend with your host family in Arica taking classes and adapting to being abroad (Spanish, new place, Chile in general). The second month, you travel with the group to two different indigenous villages and Santiago. This is the time when the group really gets the closest and you get to experience and see more of the country. The third month, my favorite, is the ISP period. You get to choose wherever you want to be in Chile, and whatever you want to do, with regards to Public Health, and have a month to carry out a research project. As a whole, the format allows you to get different aspects of an abroad experience, and change to a new aspect of life when you start to feel a bit antsy.

The Arica team is so supportive and feels like family. Arica is a small beach town that is the perfect place to begin the Chilean experience because people are extremely friendly and you have the beach right there!

SIT also attracts a really great group of people interested in having an all around study abroad experience. People all have really cool passions and want to experience all parts of Chile.

My semester in Chile was a really unique time that I now look back on and still am able to laugh at and be in awe of. The program is organized in a way that allows you to see travel around Chile and really get a sense of the country as a whole. I stayed with 4 Chilean families over the course of the semester and was able to learn so much about Chilean culture (and by comparison my own culture) from sharing in their daily lives. My favorite part of the program was the ISP period, which I spent in Santiago volunteering full-time at a non-profit organization. The program director was very flexible with allowing me to conduct an ISP on a topic of particular interest to me, although it was not directly related to the themes of the program. I had an amazing time exploring a beautiful country with a group of fun and inspiring students who I still keep in touch with. My Spanish improved immensely over the course of the semester and I quickly became accustomed to approaching strangers for directions, help or simply making conversation. This is the perfect program for anyone who is interested in studying anthropology or indigenous rights, particularly around the topic of traditional medicine. The program is structured very well and I think that a selling point of the program is that you are exposed to the current controversies surrounding public health related to traditional medicine in a variety of contexts (urban/rural, North/South, etc.)

I'm not a science student, but I had an amazing time on this program. I learned about and visited the páramo (highlands), the cloud forest, the Amazon, and the Galápagos, made 20 incredible friends, learned from wonderful professors, and grew to love my homestay. We got to explore Quito, swim with sharks, rays, fish, eels, turtles, and sea lions in the Galápagos, see a jaguar and a harpy eagle in the Amazon, birdwatch at 5am in the cloud forest, and hike to 17,500 feet on a volcano! What's not to like?