AMP Global Scholar 2019 Review

blalalalalala
Sat, 13 Jul 2019 22:48:20 +0000

If you are more interested in the intricacies of International Relations as opposed to social justice and organizing, this program is not for you. This program was very disorganized and lacks a structured, academic curriculum (Almost no curriculum!!!). Even though I made many friends, by the end I was exhausted, disappointed, and extremely frustrated. Although its price competitive compared to other summer programs, that is at the expense of quality in terms of curriculum, food and housing, and excursions. When I got there I felt that a lot of the descriptions and reviews of the program had been very misleading. For example, the cafeteria food was awful (very long lines, staff seemed overwhelmed, very little options for those with dietary restrictions) and with all the quality and unique restaurants around D.C, I’m surprised we didn’t eat out for dinner even once! The fact that the staff had to scramble to find us places to eat, especially on the night of the monument walk, showcases very poor planning. We had very little free time during the day unless you count occasional 30-minute transitional periods. The lessons and meetings were very long and dragged out. I was absolutely exhausted almost the entire time.
In terms of communication, their emails are ridden with spelling and punctuation errors, and during the program a majority of communication between staff and students was via a groupchat. It was very difficult to tell what was important and what wasn’t, which led to a lot of confusion about when we needed to meet, the nature of assignments, where to go etc. It was also common for important information to be sent out late at night and/or get lost in the constant stream of questions and pictures.
On the subject of sight-seeing: Washington D.C is so rich and full of places I would have wanted to go, but we had virtually no freedom to explore the city and a lot of the sightseeing felt really boring and “fieldtrip-esque”.
Education for All, the United Nations Foundation, and the World Bank were all useless and the people there didn’t discuss anything that you couldn’t google.
I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, but I just ended up being extremely disappointed and it felt like this whole program was centered around the mission of getting me to join the Peace Corps and pursue a future in social justice. This program is all about social justice and advocacy, not international relations. This is not to say that the people who run it are ill-intentioned or anything, but unfortunately it just doesn’t seem like they are qualified or have the resources to host a program like the one they promised.