India: Bengaluru - Culture, Society, and Global Perspectives plus Internship

USAC is a great program that provides step by step instructions throughout the entire process. They sent constant emails for follow up with detailed instructions. The application process was straight forward and easy to navigate. Now, on to the actual study abroad! I went to Bangalore, India to study business and government relations. The class was taught by an American professor 3-4 times a week. Class was a seminar style. The only drawback was its inconsistent timing so it was hard to make plans, but being in India itself made up for it. I learned a lot more outside the classroom than in it. I can't begin to describe what it was like so try it out yourself!

In late December of 2013, I boarded a plane to Bangalore. Immediately after getting off the final plane, I felt Home. There has never been a more revolutionary experience in this entire life for me. This is no platitude or exaggerated conjecture, this is as truth as science. The people are unmatched in their capacity for care and their creativity of different manifest forms of thoughtfulness. When serving with the Centre for Social Action, I got to spend as much time as I pleased volunteering with a branch of the organization called Parivarthana. It is a non-profit that cultivates sustainability through creating goods out of recycled materials. Its workforce consists of thirty women from the local impoverished areas, supplying them with needed income and promotes systemic social justice simultaneously. Two of the employees became two of my closest friends; neither of them spoke very much English at all, yet we always found ways to communicate with one another. Our friendship grew to a point where I was even invited to one of their weddings. This place became where I spent most of my time, turning my "required" 15 hours into over 100. Additionally, I was led to a United Nations Microscholarship school to help facilitate lessons on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the general culture of the United States. There, I made even more friends. It hurt to leave Bangalore. Sincerely, it was something that I did not want to do. There is a part of me that believes I left both my mind and heart back in South Central India. As for the program itself, the academic challenge is a worthy one and the professors are of high intellectual regards. The program manager is one heck of a tour guide and unintentionally promotes independent learning. If you are a person that self-initiates adventures, appreciates diversity, treats everything as a learning opportunity, does not take life too seriously but treats academics with high importance, and has a longing to serve, then this program is certainly for you. All I know is that I cannot wait to go back and am eternally grateful to programs like USAC and Boise State University's International Learning Opportunities office for the privileged opportunities they played such a paramount role in.

DISCLAIMER: This program is incredibly fun, but really is what you make it. I went in the Spring semester and it was a great experience but I think you must be willing to adapt to the culture.

It's so easy to travel throughout India which was the most fabulous part of this class. I would never NEVER travel alone because it's incredibly easy for natives to recognize that you are foreign, but traveling on trains and tour buses are great options. If traveling on an overnight train, always opt for the higher class air conditioned sleepers.

I also really enjoyed the program's planned travel. I went on the South Indian tour at the beginning of the spring semester and it was totally worth the money. The resident director in the program introduces you to Indian life in a gentle way while you still feel like a tourist and begins to help you live independently in India. If I had traveled with other students at the beginning without him, I wouldn't have known where to go or what foods to choose or where to stay. He handles it really well and explains why he decides certain things for us that way you can travel by yourself later in the program. We got to see the beautiful countryside and meet Indians that the Resident Director new and try a lot of incredible foods and get tours of interesting places.

DAILY LIFE:
Just a quick blurb about what daily life looks like- you walk about 40 minutes to school each day or you can take a 10 minute rickshaw ride to school which costs from 50 cents to $1. The school has authentic Indian food in its cafeteria and people are friendly, but in a curious way. You have to endure a lot of staring and women sometimes need to combat feisty, pushy men. You will feel like a novelty. As long as the USAC program keeps its current housing, there is a Domino's pizza and a Pizza Hut around the corner. There's also a great restaurant called Kevin's Kitchen from which you can order-in authentic Indian food at night. There's also a grocery about 5 minutes walking away and you live close to a pretty well-known bus stop so it's not hard to direct a rickshaw driver to your home. You'll be constantly tired from being bombarded by new sights, sounds, and people, but the experience is great.

India is one of the most unique and interesting cultures I have experienced, and I wouldn't change anything about my time there. The best part is meeting the native students - they helped us to really integrate and understand what life in India truly is like. Although the process of getting a visa to study there and obtaining a residential permit once you arrive is frustrating and complicated, it was worth every minute to have the chance to live there and try something totally outside my comfort zone. Perhaps the most challenging aspect is understanding what it means to stand out and feel like you are being discriminated against and misunderstood. It's an experience that most Americans don't have in their lifetime, and I became so much more aware after being on the other side of such a situation. I was taking a service learning course, and this also really helped to open my eyes to what is going on in India and some of the challenges that people there are facing.

India is amazing. It was completely different than anything else I've ever experienced and I learned so much from being immersed in Indian culture. USAC allowed me to volunteer at a tutoring center in the slums, participate in a Bollywood dance class, and more!

Bangalore is an amazing city and Christ University is an amazing college with very rigorous and interesting classes. However, the USAC program staff members were terrible (one staff member did not know my name throughout the entirety of the program even though we talked almost every day and the other staff member was very nice but gave horrible advice about problems that we encountered in daily life and led us astray several times). USAC tries to sell you to this program with highlights such as the city tour, slum visit, village tour, and the optional tour at the end of the program. However, I thought that the city tour completely missed extremely important parts of the city (ex. Bangalore palace and the government buildings, Cubbon Park, etc), the slum visit was extremely short (about 15 minutes), and the optional tour was the biggest waste of money (The Southern India tour that I went on was $500 dollars for a less than three day tour-marketed as 1 week on the website- that should have cost absolutely no more than $250). Additionally, we paid about $800 for a one month stay in apartments, which is ASTRONOMICAL for India, and we did not even get reliable WiFi (which made homework extremely difficult), or constantly running water. I loved India and the people that I met, and on my own I was able to see some amazing things. The culture is so fascinating, and I do not regret going to India to study abroad in the slightest. But, I definitely regret choosing USAC as the program to go with, as it was very easy to see at numerous points during the program where so much of my money was being wasted. My recommendation is to go to India without hesitation; however, you should definitely hesitate and do further research before selecting this specific program.

Wonderful experience, best choice ever! Amazing service learning and volunteer experience. Great staff, beautiful university. Do your research before you go! The more you know, the better prepared you'll be! university!

Great opportunity to broaden our horizons and expands our intellect. This is the best program for those students seeking a true globalized experience. They will learn how far away some countries are and yet, how well-connected they are to the Western Hemisphere.