Program Reviews

Absolutely amazing experience, especially for anyone who has studied wildlife, ecology, and management from afar but never been able to experience it up close. Great field work, great support staff, and great community. The highlight was definitely doing safaris and going to Serengeti National Park, but all of it - social activities, weekend travel/excursions, local town - was beautiful and so rich in culture. Everyone at Moyo Hill Camp was welcoming, kind, and dedicated. I'd recommend to anyone!

This program was life changing for me. I chose this program because it aligned well with my animal behavior (biology and psychology double major) degree and my interest in learning about cultures and places vastly different from the US. I was not disappointed by what I experienced with this program. The professors were excellent, the research project I worked on got published and is now on my resume, and the housing is a renovated resort hotel with a pool and various other perks. All of the staff including translators, cooks, cleaning crew, and gardeners are so friendly and love to help you learn Khmer. I have taken a lot of what I learned from this program back with me and applied it to my everyday life.

Living in the Amazon basin and doing hands on research is something truly unique. I had a marvelous time. This is a good program for adventurers, or wanna-be adventurers who could use some scaffolding. The academics were not too difficult, but I did learn a lot. There were many rules for safety purposes, which did not bother me too much: wear long pants for the snakes and spiders and bugs; travel with a buddy; don't eat street food for parasites (I did flout this one, it was worth it!); keep your cash in zipped pockets. The food was the best I have ever had.
Mold, mildew, parasites, and loss of power are all part of life in the Amazon. It is not resort living. Wifi access was very limited.
The campus was exceptionally remote - there are a few households and one tiny town within walking distance, but that is about it. During non-class times, expect to interact mostly with other American students. Socializing with locals happens during free weekends in the local cities or on your break in Cuzco.

SFS Panama is a study abroad program unlike any other - it is so interdisciplinary, which invites students from a wide range of majors to apply and find what interests them in the program. I went into this program thinking that I would be majoring in Biology with a focus in Marine Science, but the interviews with local people, listening to guest lecturers, and reading so many articles about the social factors amidst ecosystem degradation, I understand my true passion lies in Psychology. I'm not convinced my passion for Psychology would have reemerged unless I went on this program with SFS and for that I am truly grateful.

I have wanted to go to Central America for a long time, so I jumped on this opportunity to go and learn about the leader of environmentalism. It was everything I wanted and more. I got there and spent three months in on a gorgeous campus learning hands-on about ecology and environmentalism. All the professors know about what they are talking about and are incredibly passionate about it. Every field trip they took us only much added in the learning as I was able to see what they were talking about instead of looking at pictures. We get free time to explore on our own and see places the program was not able to take us to. Loved getting to see many different parts of Costa Rica and get to know the people that live here. I can not imagine a better semester abroad for me.

I have been back in the U.S. for 2.5 weeks now, and I am glad to say that despite the time continuing to pass, I will never have a shortage of amazing memories to look back on from my semester in Bhutan.

The School for Field Studies has opened up the world for me; it has shown me another culture and way of life, a stunning country, and it has turned typical Western education on its head: you don’t have to be in a classroom to learn; you don’t need a library to study. SFS fosters learning in real-life situations: having to cope with language barriers when trying to interview locals; collaborating with peers to complete research projects; most of all, I think it helps foster self-reliance, self-compassion, and self-knowledge. Kadrinche la, Bhutan!

It seems like this program has changed a lot since the Hurricane in 2017. The staff has turned over, rules have gotten stricter, and overall program quality seems to have decreased (unfortunately). Academics aren't too difficult but lots of busy work and boring class time restricts your time out in the field (classes are 8am to 6pm M, T, Th, F while the semester is in full swing). Lectures could have been cut in half with the same content covered. On Wednesday and Saturday you have waterfront and community service time, but due to bad planning we lost our Wednesdays during the second half of the semester. Directed research projects, advertised as a highlight for the program, only have 10 field days and really only happen during the last two weeks of the semester. Added on to this is the way the staff treats you- like a middle schooler. Curfew, no kitchen entry, have to sign out if you want to swim, not allowed to stand or move in boats (even though many students can drive boats better than the staff), etc... Its degrading and endlessly frustrating (they even went as far as to put up barbed wire and security cameras because they didn't trust us). As someone who just wanted to explore South Caicos and participate in a field studies focused program, I felt this program did not live up to many of my expectations. I had tons of fun times on South and may be a little harsh in my review, but it was hard to look past all these shortcomings during my time abroad with SFS.

I had an amazing time with SFS Cambodia. The classwork is incredibly interesting and the ability to go into the field and connect what you have learned in class to real life experiences is unlike any learning setting I have been in before. The center is also located in a central location and it is very easy to get into downtown Siem Reap. The first portion of the program is very busy with homework and full days, which can sometimes leave you feeling overwhelmed and as if you have no time to actually enjoy the city you are living in. However, the directed research portion does allow for more free time because you are doing most of your work on your own. My directed research project was the highlight of the trip for me, as it allowed me to interview indigenous people in Cambodia, an experience that I will never be able to recreate in the future.

Overall, I would recommend this program to someone who is passionate about environmental science, and who is comfortable living in close quarters with a small group of people. You must be flexible, and able to adapt to situations that you may be unfamiliar with. Keeping an open mind and a positive attitude throughout the program is definitely one of the major reasons I enjoyed myself so much.

my semester with TIBS was awesome! It was so cool to have the ocean, rainforest, and archipelago as a whole as a classroom. All of the professors and staff at SFS are amazing people who truly make the program as awesome as it is. They're all super talented and passionate about what they do and for sure people I'm coming away super lucky to have gotten to know. The classes were all super engaging and interesting. The center is right on the water and they have paddle boards and kayaks to use which was awesome. The town is super close and most of the activities there are to do on your free time are diving, surfing, snorkeling, and hanging out on the beach. There is not much free time during the first two months but there is more once directed research starts. I didn't mind at all being so busy the first two months though because classes were so cool and we got to go to so many different places with class.

I didn't really know what to expect going into this semester. Before this semester, I had never traveled abroad, so going to the other side of the world for three months was a fairly big first step. However, now as the semester is wrapping up, I'm finding that I'm not really ready to leave.

There are several reasons why that's the case. First of all, the staff at SFS Cambodia is incredibly friendly and the community is very tight-knit, so everyone starts to feel like your family fairly quickly. Also, our living conditions at the center are incredibly accommodating and, frankly, luxurious. The food is some of the best that I've ever had in my life, and it is such a privilege to have every meal cooked for us.

As for the academics, I found all of the professors to be very qualified and all of the material to be fascinating, but I sometimes felt as if lectures could be made shorter. When we're not traveling, the structure of our class schedule feels very similar to high school, which is a difficult transition coming from a college campus. I also wish that we had more than a month to conduct our direct research project, because it is a lot of work to pack into a very short amount of time. However, having the opportunity to conduct so many field interviews is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and probably my favorite part of this program.

In general, this is a BUSY program, which can have its pros and cons. A lot of the work and field trips are front-loaded, so you don't really have time to sit around and think about how much you miss home in the beginning. Personally, during that time, I was so in awe of all of the amazing places we were going to that I couldn't feel homesick if I tried. That's not to say that I wasn't exhausted. If you hate waking up early, don't choose this study abroad program.

I can't imagine anyone regretting doing a semester of SFS Cambodia. It's such a cliche, but it is a life-changing experience in so many ways. I came here from a very high-stress university where I had a lot of responsibilities, little class time, and no one looking over my shoulder to make sure that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. SFS Cambodia is the opposite of that, and in some ways, I have grown to love it. While we're busy, we don't have to make our own schedules and the pace of life also feels slower. Compared to my home university, it has actually been so much easier for me to be present and appreciate the little, wonderful moments around us, of which there are so many in a program this unique.