Please note that SIT will make every effort to maintain its programs as described. To respond to emergent situations, like COVID-19, however, SIT may have to change or cancel programs.
WHY A MASTER'S IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE?
Grounded in SIT’s unique brand of experiential, place-based learning, explore how global health crises, economic inequality, natural resource degradation, and political and ethnic conflict are interconnected, requiring a new generation of highly educated, innovative, multidisciplinary development practitioners.
Starting in Quito, Ecuador, a city high in the Andes, you will explore the challenges of one of the most biodiverse countries in the world while learning from faculty, guest lecturers, and experts in the field. Study ecological impacts, forest regeneration, sustainable land practices, and conservation on excursion to northern Ecuador’s patchwork of cloud forests. Excursions may also include trips to the coast.
Spend your second semester in Africa, splitting your time between Cape Town in South Africa, and the smaller river city of Lilongwe, Malawi. For 15 weeks, you will engage in comparative analyses of how design thinking, monitoring and evaluation, economics, resource management, health policy, and trade are affected by local needs, diverse livelihood practices, cultural identities, and varied histories of colonization and resistance. Though based in the city, you will examine sustainable and regenerative development practices in urban, peri-urban, and rural locations during site visits and fieldwork.
In the final semester of this one-year program, you will spend 10 to 12 weeks in a full-time practicum in a role and location of your choice, drawing from SIT’s worldwide professional networks. You will gain the experience and hands-on skills you need to attain your career goals and will also complete a capstone paper.
The SIT Master’s in Sustainable Development Practice offers you a chance to obtain professional skills while conducting research and fieldwork in a highly competitive global environment. As a graduate, you’ll be prepared to integrate policy, scholarship, ethics, participatory practice, and lifelong learning to achieve sustainable, global development goals in the 21st century.