Chapter 13: Intended and Unintended: Transformative Learning in a Tanzanian Field Program

International and intercultural (global) field programs are opportunities to create rich cultural contexts for students to learn in complex structured (intended) and unstructured (unintended) ways both during and after the international field experience. Such learning experiences encourage students to engage the local in ways that may generate “high-intensity dissonance,” propelling them into examining their emotional and intellectual assumptions. This chapter draws on 10 years of experience directing field programs in various East African countries. I focus here on experiences gleaned from my program in and around Moshi, Tanzania. Depending on the year, students may participate in a service-oriented project in a rural government health clinic, or in an ethnographic methods program in health clinics, hospitals, an in-patient substance abuse residence, or in food security research. I propose that unstructured learning is a profound way to elicit post-program transformation and learning. My experience tells me that unstructured experiences may be more of a catalyst for student learning than that gained in a more structured context.