Designed primarily for non-South Asia specialists, SITA offers a standardized curriculum in the fall semester, with courses in language, history, religion, literature, social and cultural issues, and independent study, for which Bowdoin grants five course credits. An extension of one to three months, for up to three credits in individually tailored courses, is available for exceptional students. Participants live with host families and tour several regions in South India during the program, and may travel in other parts of South Asia after its conclusion. The Swedish Program is sponsored by the University of Stockholm and a consortium of American colleges and universities, including Bowdoin. It offers students the opportunity to spend either a semester or a year studying comparative institutional organization and public policy in complex industrial societies.
Most courses are interdisciplinary in nature.
The only required course is a semester of Swedish language, but nearly all students take The Swedish Model and Comparative Public Policy. Other courses offered typically include Women and Swedish Society, Swedish and European Film, Politics and Nationalism in Eastern Europe, and Environmental Policy. The Twelve College Exchange provides Bowdoin students with the opportunity to study for a year at Amherst, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wheaton, or Williams Colleges or Wesleyan University. Also available through the Twelve College Exchange are the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Program in American Maritime Studies and the National Theater Institute. The deadline for all Twelve College programs is February 1 of the academic year preceding attendance.