Celia Szterenfeld, student from Brazil - attended both 1997 and 1998 The Summer Institute offers a powerful update on contemporary matters concerning the study of sexuality, gender and AIDS, encapsulated in a few weeks of intensive work. Classes are lively, readers are carefully chosen and teachers are highly motivated. Specialists are brought in from all over the world to help expand students' view of sexuality in relation to different cultures and they seem happy at the prospect of having a less formal environment to debate issues of their interest. The readers are precious guides to the study of more complex questions and are totally integrated to the course. Even after attending classes for a whole day, students still feel motivated enough to read some 50 pages for seminars the next day.
Staff is friendly and competent and course infrastructure fair.
As the program changes year to year one is able to participate in more than one course and I enrolled in 1997 and 1998, benefiting from the presence of great professors both times. This experience allowed me to establish a study group in Rio, which meets twice a month, and greatly improve my staff understanding of current issues upgrading their level of participation in research methodologies debates. As a result, engagement in research is rising within the institution and many key texts on sexuality are now available in Portuguese and posted in the Internet. Amsterdam is an amazing city, full of cultural possibilities and urban examples of contemporary issues in culture, society, and sexuality. Therefore, living in Amsterdam was an essential part of the learning experience provided by the Institute.