My semester in Uganda has been incredibly interesting and valuable academically, but it has not looked like a normal college semester. The School for International Training prides itself on experiential learning, and I have loved being a part of it. My program, which is officially SIT: Development Studies in Uganda, is divided into two sections. The first part is six weeks of classes and site visits, and the second six weeks is an independent study project (ISP) or internship. As we are now done with the class section and half way through our ISPs, I can say that both halves of our program have been valuable in different ways.
The classes we took during the six-week period were a Development Studies Seminar, Research Methods and Ethics, and Luganda. In general, we would have a lecture for one of these classes in the morning from a professional in the field, and then would go on field excursions in the afternoons that related to what we were learning about. For example, one day in Development Studies, we had a lawyer from an established advocacy group in Kampala lecture us in the morning on constitutionalism in Uganda; in the afternoon, we went to the Parliament of Uganda and could ask officials there any questions that arose from the lecture as we sat on the floor of parliament.
This style of classes allowed us to understand the theories and concepts that we needed on a subject through traditional lectures, and to apply what we learned in the field in the afternoons. The first six weeks were important because they helped us learn about development in Uganda in many areas and taught us how do conduct research here before we were on our own.
We are currently coming to the end of our fourth week of our ISPs, and it has been a great experience so far. As I mentioned in my last blog post, my project is about the geopolitical relations surrounding the River Nile and Uganda’s use and development of the river. To do my study I had to create the idea for my project, write a proposal, plan out the six weeks on my own, find housing in Kampala, get contacts for interviews, read and conduct document analysis, and write my 40-60 page research paper. Right now, I am finishing up my last interviews, mainly with officials within the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment, and am in the middle of writing my paper. This is the first time I have ever conducted a real research project to this scale, and I am very grateful for everything I have learned through this experience.