Reflecting on my semester in Australia I have learned so much about the environment and sustainability. I have also grown tremendously and feel more capable and independent than ever. My program had numerous hiccups. First our academic director was a man from South Africa who had only been in the country a couple of days before we arrived. This caused a huge lack in cultural knowledge being shared with us in the beginning. He also began to make remarks about the girls on the program (17 out of 18 of us were girls) when we would wear our bathing suits and said we needed to cover up, even though everyone in Byron Bay walked around barefoot and in bathing suits. He was unorganized and would talk over our guest lecturers. Furthermore he wanted people with Covid to fly on a plane while positive and he told students to “quiet down” when they were talking about their partners and their identity as members in the LGBTQ+ community. After many, many uncomfortable and frustrating days with him we wrote a letter to SIT and asked for support and suggested he should never to this again or hold an AD position. Then during our internships they replaced him with the old, formerly retired AD, Peter. Peter is WONDERFUL and I learned so much from him in the short time we had him but the transition was not smooth and no one addressed what had happened. Overall I learned and grow tremendously but I was frustrated by the lack of urgency from SIT to find a replacement AD when Peter announced his retirement over 2 years ago and gave them plenty of warning. Next semester they have a wonderful AD with a background in sustainability, but I will warn that this program is NOT for the weak.
