The Rural Internship Training Program (RITP) began as a response to the overly market-oriented teaching programs of Malaysian universities which presently focus on preparing students of all academic disciplines to serve the market and to be servile to market values. Started in 2015, the RITP aims to expose social science students to the diversity of livelihoods, cultures, and value systems in rural Sarawak as an alternative to the market. It also trains students to be good social science researchers in the real world even as it aims to develop a sense of empathy, solidarity, and belonging between the students and the rural communities.