School for International Training

The School for International Training is a global institution offering graduate programs through SIT Graduate Institute and undergraduate study abroad programs through SIT Study Abroad. Employing an immersive approach developed over 80 years, SIT encourages students to step beyond the boundaries of a traditional classroom to analyze the critical issues shaping local communities around the globe. SIT Graduate Institute prepares students from across the globe to be effective leaders, professionals, and citizens. SIT’s graduate and professional development programs are rooted in the experiential education model, where learning occurs at the nexus of theory and practice. Students are trained to become highly skilled practitioners who have a commanding knowledge of the theoretical basis of their profession; experience in the field; and an awareness of their own capabilities, values, and ethics. SIT Study Abroad provides accredited field-based semester and summer programs for undergraduate students in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as comparative programs in multiple locations. The School for International Training began in 1932 with the founding of The Experiment in International Living, an organization aimed at improving understanding across cultures and nations by sending U.S. students abroad to expand their worldviews. In the early 1960s, Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps and an alumnus of The Experiment, called on The Experiment to conduct orientation and training for the earliest Peace Corps volunteers. These orientation and training activities led to the establishment of an academic institution—SIT—in 1964. Later, The Experiment’s Cooperative Overseas Program, a program for university students, evolved into SIT Study Abroad.