Program Reviews

I came back from this program a more passionate, educated, and confident individual. This program truly helps you grow academically, socially, and culturally. It is definitely a unique program that is unlike any others. The program excels at improving your language skills and encouraging experiential learning. The focus on human rights and social movements matches perfectly with the location of Buenos Aires. The city really becomes your classroom. I learned about Argentine history and the human rights issues of the dictatorship in a way that I would have never had the opportunity to learn about in the U.S. The subjects that the courses cover are incredibly interesting, but hard to learn about; however, the professors and guest lecturers do not shy away from anything. The visits to local organizations, museums, and historic sights really help to put what you learn in the classroom into context. There is no way you can come away from the semester without changing your perspective on the world.

The home stay aspect of the program is also fantastic. Almost everyone had a great experience with their host family. They are so welcoming and really make you feel like a part of the family. They act as a great way to immerse yourself in the culture and get comfortable in a new city and country. Outside of your host family, it is pretty hard to make local friends because you end up spending most of your time with the other students in the group. The size of the program tends to be small (my program only had 25 students) and the excursions to the north and south result in you spending a lot of time together. The program does have its weaknesses, but they are all outweighed by the overall experience. In the end, you get out of the program, is what you put into it. If you are looking for a unique study abroad experience and are a self-starter, I would highly recommend this program.

I had an amazing time studying abroad with this SIT program and it in many ways surpassed my expectations! The format of the the SIT programs provides for a unique learning experience in which the classes are integrated in your everyday life there with the homestays and with the excursions. It was nice that the difficulty of the courses was lower than was I was used to at school but they were also very engaging as what we learned in lecture was enhanced through the weekly visits to health clinics and with conversations with our host families and other locals.

The excursions are also a great component of the program. Not only did they help give us a comprehensive view of the public health system in Chile through studies of the main indigenous populations, but they also allowed us to explore different regions of the country. Along with a few other short trips that I managed to fit in on my own time, by the end I felt like I really had seen Chile.

The ISP was probably my favorite part of the trip! Although I was a bit worried about the whole process, it was an amazing learning experience and confirmed my passion to pursue a career in public health. For the ISP period, I lived in Valparaíso with another friend from the trip. It was a great opportunity to live independently and really immerse ourselves in the culture and explore a unique city. At the same time, I was able to gain hands-on experience with ethnographic research through my ISP project. I plan to continue my research during my senior year.

Overall, these few months were unforgettable! I loved the interactiveness of the public health and traditional medicine curriculum and the opportunity to conduct independent research. Above all, it was great exploring the beautiful country among such a friendly and lively population.

I gained a great new group of friends, a hugely broadened perspective, experiential knowledge based in three different countries and regions, and a host of amazing new experiences. Be prepared to be busy, but you'll look back and wish you had done still more. I learned so much from living and studying in three different countries, and had a great time too. This is not an easy or typical study abroad, but if you want to immerse yourself in places that are different, learn to thrive in discomfort, or just see a huge amount of beautiful, amazing places, this is a fantastic program. I learned and thought a lot about both large world systems and grassroots approaches to solving every type of problem. Probably the most fun and educational semester of my college career.

Argentina was amazing and my program was intense. Our classes were based in Buenos Aires but we did a lot of traveling (almost every 2 weeks!) to other provinces in the country, so it was a lot of flying and first-hand exposure to real world situations. We visited hospitals, health centers and met with various professionals to learn about their healthcare system. Everything was in Spanish so it took me about a month to adjust, but by the end of it I was pretty much doing my own independent study project without a problem. Along with all the educational excursions, I got to see some really cool sites, visit wine country, go hiking and the most beautiful site I visited were the waterfalls at Iguazú, which is one of 7 natural wonders of the world (pics below!)

SIT Bolivia is unlike most other study abroad programs. Although it is a highly structured program (you will take all classes and travel on various excursions with the same group of 15-20 people), there is plenty of opportunity to explore all that Bolivia has to offer, especially during the ISP period, where you can learn more about virtually any aspect of Bolivian culture or society. Another unique aspect of this program is the opportunity to publish your own children's book with the Kids Book Bolivia collection!

Overall a great experience, ended the semester a capable Spanish speaker with an award-winning independent project. My semester had an interim Academic Director, which may or may not have affected some lax classes and lack of supplementary material that i've heard was better with the past/present ADs. My Spanish improved by leaps and bounds, and I formed friendships and relationships all over the country. The ISP video project I produced wound up getting national attention, and won funding which means I will be returning to Nica this Fall. If you put energy and effort into exploring Nicaragua and seeking out opportunities to do a great ISP, there's nothing stopping you from doing the same.

I learned so much on this program that I would not have learned at my home college, largely because of the focus on experiential learning in the field. We got to travel to a cloud forest and a high-altitude paramo, not to mention deep in the Amazon forest and the Galapagos Islands! Those opportunities themselves make this program worth it because we were able to experience all different parts of Ecuador in a way that simple tourist would never be able to access. My spanish also improved a lot and I gained a lot of confidence with the language. Just be aware this program is a balance between conservation/field biology and Spanish and therefore is not an immersive experience.

I had never traveled outside of the U.S. prior to attending this program. I absolutely loved my experience. This program offers the perfect mix of academics, fun, and adventure. I feel like I learned a lot more about conservation, humans in relation to the environment, and how to conduct environmental research. I came in with some hard science background, however, other people had a great time without that background. I would recommend that you only do this program if you are really interested in research and learning about different ways of doing science. There is definitely a huge social science component, which I really liked as an anthropology major. We were given the opportunity to engage with local communities. It was a challenging program is some ways and pretty fast paced. I felt like the time flew by because there were so many activities and places visited. It is really fun to get to see the different parts of Panama. I want to go to Panama. The program does a really great job of connecting you with local researchers and professionals. I loved the freedom of doing my own research project. As well all the staff are super helpful, supportive, and overall wonderful people. Our academic director was great. If you are worried at all about bonding with people, don't, you get to know people very fast and spend a lot of time in the group. Overall it was an incredible experience, that definitely affected my perspective and has impacted the way I live my life now.

It was three months of seminars and guest speakers and one month of independent research. The guest speakers were the lecturers and were very informative, knowledgeable, and engaging in class- however since they are not actually professors they were essentially unavailable if you wanted to reach out outside of class about paper expectations or class topics. The staff was very helpful and kind although somewhat disorganized. I personally didn't feel the academic portion was as rigorous as advertised by SIT on their website and they didn't have as many resources and assistance when it came around to the research. Make sure you are very responsible and have excellent time management because no one is making sure you're on schedule or checking in on you during the independent research period.
Morocco was easily the most amazing part of the trip as it was such a different experience than most people will ever have and the food/people/culture was spectacular.
Personally I recommend going abroad through a University program and not a private program like SIT because the academic portion was not strong enough to miss out on the amazing social experiences and connections we could've had if we had been exposed to more young Dutch people (we just had classes with the same 20 or so American students every day).

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/