Bolivia through the Eyes of US College Students

This afternoon I got to do one of my favorite things here, teaching a seminar on “Bolivia and Globalization” for the visiting US students of the School for International Training’s semester abroad program. I used to teach at San Francisco State University when I still lived in California and miss it.

The SIT program is terrific. Undergraduate students from throughout the US come to Bolivia for a semester. They take intensive Spanish classes, live with Bolivian families, attend seminars on social, political and economic issues, visit the whole range of Bolivian society, and finally work on an independent study project of their choosing. These range from reports, to movies, to pieces of creative theater.

I have gotten to know dozens of these students and I have seen how deeply the experience of coming to Bolivia changes their perspectives on the world and in many cases the course of their lives. Many have worked with us at The Democracy Center on special projects. One young woman helped us research why so many Bolivian orphans are left without adoptive families even though there are so many families in the US who would love to adopt them. Another student, along with her visiting boyfriend, just spent the past month helping us investigate the role of the International Monetary Fund in Bolivia, for our forthcoming report on that subject.

At the start of today’s session I asked the students to introduce themselves and explain why they came to Bolivia. For most the answer was the same – to understand a world so distant in so many ways from their own, to rock their worlds. I know they won’t be disappointed. They had so many thoughtful comments and questions that our afternoon seminar only ended when dinner called.

If you are a college student reading this and pondering an adventure, by all means take the leap if you can. Check out the SIT program and see if it is an option for you. Here’s the Web site.