SIT Study Abroad: Tanzania: Zanzibar Coastal Ecology

This program has left me with amazing relationships and memories I will cherish forever. The program was incredibly impactful in my academic and personal life. After returning to my home country, the USA, I feel a profound connection to a country and set of people outside my original circle.

I seriously cannot recommend this program more. From this experience, you will be better equipped for the world, the job market, applying to grad school, or whatever else lies ahead more than anyone else who didn't do this program. This program is extremely intense, not only the time commitment but it is long hours during the hot tropical days. Some will appreciate the academic rigor in this program, but if you're looking for a vacation (despite it being in one of the most beautiful vacation spots in the world!) this program might not be for you. That being said, anyone doing this program will get the absolute most out of it. The academics were interactive, field based, usually based on doing hands on research that you're physically doing, then writing reports, having discussions, presenting, and doing analysis with the data. You learn through field trips, snorkeling, learning Swahili interactively, working with animals, people, doing interviews, and all the while you don't even know how much everything has built up piece by piece so that you can finally do a month long research project, speaking a language you didn't know when starting the program: A project that means something to the people of Zanzibar. And you can walk away knowing that you can ask better questions, you can know what its really like doing a field based research project and what's not included in every scientific methods section, how ingenuitive people in the developing world when managing resources with little economic means to do so can be, as well as doing it through an amazing cultural learning process in one of the most beautiful countries on Earth.

I got to experience a whole other culture that was neat to me, and SIT does a good job of merging social & environmental issues into the program. SIT is really good at coordinating big programs because they do a lot of these. And once you're there there's a specific program coordinator to help with things.