Student voices on the importance of international education

November 15th, 2021   |   SIT Graduate Institute, SIT Study Abroad

Each year, the U.S. Departments of Education and State designate a week to spotlight the importance of international education. “International education enhances cultural and linguistic diversity and helps to develop cross-cultural communication skills, foreign language competencies, and enhanced self-awareness and understanding of diverse perspectives,” this year’s statement reads.

At SIT, we welcome this opportunity to focus on the importance of the work we do year-round. And there is no better way to highlight this work than through the voices of our students and alumni.

Halle Catalina Brown studied abroad on SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation in 2019. That experience was so foundational that she continues to blog about it and the Ecuador connections she made during her time there.

Ecuador study abroad excursion feels like an 'unimaginable, wild dream'

My heart sank as I observed the destruction of some of the most wild and beautiful nature I've ever seen and the deep suffering of the people.

“I fell in love with the Amazon,” Halle writes in this blog post. “... Oftentimes, I would remind myself that the nature I was exploring has only been seen by a countable quantity of eyes. Possibly countable only on my fingers and toes. Which is the reason I find it so important to also provide education on the ways we are destroying this wildness.”

She goes on to describe in detail the shocking corporate and government practices that are destroying natural resources and local communities. “My heart sank as I observed the destruction of some of the most wild and beautiful nature I've ever seen and the deep suffering of the people. And we are all to blame.”

It’s no doubt that the pandemic has challenged our students’ ability to physically cross borders and experience other cultures in person, but that hasn’t deterred many students who are intent on enhancing their international education and expanding their world view.

Chile virtual internship offers new ‘vantage point’ on social change

I learned a lot about Chilean culture and was able to experience it from a close perspective ...

In fall 2020, Spelman College international studies major Alix Swann joined SIT for Chile: Virtual Internship in Education & Social Change Organizations. “At first, I was apprehensive about the online experience, but it ended up being incredibly impactful,” Alix told us. “I learned a lot about Chilean culture and was able to experience it from a close perspective, as well as work with an organization who does a lot of work for women’s rights on the ground.”

University of Arkansas Honors College Fellow Meghana Chithirala, a pre-med junior, had planned to spend the summer polishing her language skills in France. When the pandemic interrupted those plans, Meghana joined SIT Kenya: Virtual Internship in Public Health in the Tropics.

SIT virtual internship with Kenyan hospital offers insights on public health

This internship was honestly one of the greatest opportunities I had been given.

Meghana's rotations—in an HIV clinic and pediatrics, critical care, and neonatal units at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisumu—were an eye-opening introduction to public health, as well as the benefits of online internships. “I was exposed to a multitude of issues in the Kenyan health care system and how third-world countries are trying to utilize their limited resources,” Meghana wrote.

“This internship was honestly one of the greatest opportunities I had been given,” she concluded.

Gretta Marston-Lari was born in Peru and came to the United States with her parents as a young teen. A Latin American studies and theater major at Macalester College, Gretta returned to Peru with SIT on a program focused on indigenous communities and globalization.

Semester in Peru inspires musical

I felt that I was finally learning what I had been longing to learn in all of my college courses.

“I felt that I was finally learning what I had been longing to learn in all of my college courses. … The study abroad experience fed my soul in a way that was really needed and that I had been waiting for since I left Peru at age 14.”

As her final project, Gretta wrote a musical, Como la Tierra (“Like the Earth”) that tells the story of an indigenous community’s struggle to block a copper mine. “We had been learning a lot about how indigenous bodies of knowledge exist in an oral tradition. To me, theater in a large way is an exchange of knowledge, and it’s oral. I thought this was the best way I could connect to what was happening and to contribute to further their struggle,” she told us.

During an exceptionally challenging year, Danielle Purvis earned her MA from SIT in Climate Change & Global Sustainability, a one-year global program that includes a semester each in Iceland and Zanzibar.

'The ways of this world must change'

... we get to be on the front lines of building new bridges and creating a new way of life.

“On top of the typical challenges of a graduate degree, the Class of 2021 completed their degrees entirely or almost entirely during a global pandemic. My cohort, for instance, experienced a lock down, then an evacuation, and then a lock down and an evacuation,” Danielle told her graduating class during a moving speech at her commencement in August.

“I am completing this experience with a blend of gratitude for the resources available to me and a commitment to see these bountiful resources distributed as equitably as possible. I am completing this experience with a global lens of how we are inextricably connected to each other and to our natural environment. And I know, more than ever before, that the ways of this world are unsustainable and must change, and that we get to be on the front lines of building new bridges and creating a new way of life,” she said.