A great experience but no thanks to the program

I certainly enjoyed my time in Chile and am grateful that I had to opportunity to go, but the program left a lot to be desired. My main complaint is that that the academics were very poor. The academic director changed a year ago so any reviews from before then don't accurately represent the current program. While the academics weren't hard, we were usually stuck in class until dark so we didn't have any time for anything else. Most days we passively listened to lectures all day with no opportunity to discuss, analyze, or synthesize what we were being told. Especially because everything was in Spanish, it would have been very helpful for comprehension to discuss the material. We voiced this to our academic director several times but nothing changed. I honestly don't think he has any idea what a discussion-based class looks like, let alone how to lead one. The "intensive medical Spanish" course usually consisted of playing games or walking around town, which was fun but didn't teach me any Spanish, especially medical Spanish. I honestly had more rigorous Spanish classes in high school. Finally, it was also hard to become part of the community, get any exercise, or explore the city because we were in class from about 9:00-1:00 and 3:00-7:00 every day and the schedules were always changing last minute. I had to go out of my way to make friends with some Chileans, and this proved to be the most rewarding/fun part of my whole experience. Again, I really did enjoy my time in Chile, but feel like SIT did not deliver the program that it promised and would encourage you to sign up for a different SIT trip.