Honors Link

After completing a term in East Africa with The School for Field Studies’ wildlife management  program, I can say that every minute of the experience lived up to my hopes and expectations. I now understand why SFS is one of the leading study abroad programs for learning about current environmental issues and gaining hands-on experience with ongoing research projects. Through the courses offered, excursions in the field, and participation in a directed research project, I was able to gain applicable knowledge in a greater depth than I could have found in any classroom course. By participating in this study abroad program, I am also now part of a much larger network, with many new connections in my personal life and professional career. The staff, faculty, and directed research made this program all it claims to be. I am excited to see how the experiences I gained through SFS will continue to help me throughout my life.

Just as its name suggests, SFS’s wildlife management program offers more diverse wildlife encounters than I could have ever imagined. We were lucky enough to see just about every main African mammal out there, and a large portion of our game drives included witnessing kills, births, fights, and other encounters. Despite all of these incredible wildlife sightings, the real highlight of this program for me was actually getting to know the staff and faculty. These are the real people who can make or break a study abroad experience, and for me, they could not have made it any better. Every single one of the faculty members in both Kenya and Tanzania were passionate and excited about the topics they taught us. They were patient, had great senses of humor, and were dedicated to helping us gain deep understandings of their specialty areas. When we weren’t in class with the faculty, we were almost always spending time with the staff. Whether this meant playing a big game of volleyball or soccer or just sitting down and chatting, they never failed to make our days a little brighter. Overall, SFS’s staff is made of some of the kindest, most honest, and hardest-working people I have ever met, and anyone would be lucky to spend a semester with them.

The directed research project was one of the main factors that made SFS stand out from other study abroad programs. I focused on human-wildlife conflict among the rural Maasai people within the Amboseli Ecosystem. My research was part of a larger five-year research project in environmental policy, led by Tom Were. Tom provided me and the six other students involved with the perfect amount of guidance and support while also giving us room to explore, research, and delve into our own areas of interest. After countless hours of research, data collection, analysis, and writing, I was proud of the research paper I handed in. The community presentation at the end of the semester was the perfect way to finish the trip and give back to the community a little piece of what we’d worked on.

My experience with SFS did not end with the completion of my semester studying abroad. I am now a part of a much larger network of other SFS alumni, who can help me find promising career leads and give me opportunities to share my experience with students considering the program. I am confident that the knowledge and hands-on experience I gained in wildlife management will be highly applicable to any wildlife career I pursue. I am so grateful to have had this study abroad opportunity and to have made the new lifelong friends that I did, and I am grateful to the donors who made the experience possible.

Asante sana kwa kila kitu!