Once in a Far Off Land: Indian Business Environment 2012
In the beginning of 2012 I had the opportunity to study abroad with twenty other students in India with Mays Business School for two weeks. To be cliché, it was one of the most amazing opportunities I ever experienced and it truly changed my life. I learned about Indian culture, Indian business practices, but most importantly, I learned that people are the sum of their experiences and people are really more alike than they think, despite their differences.
We did many things while we traveled India. We had many corporate visits, from small local companies to huge globally known companies like Cisco and Infosys. We experienced many culturally historical sites all across the country, like the Bull Temple in Bangalore and the Taj Mahal in Agra. We ate dinner in palaces, rode elephants, and tried on Indian style clothing.
My favorite thing about our trip was the people we met and the group I grew with. We would meet people alongside the road, and make friends with other visitors at our hotel. We had an opportunity to spend a day at a business school, SDM Institute for Management Development (SDMIMD) in Mysore, India. Here, we mingled with students and got a glimpse of what higher education looks like. The students loved welcoming us as friends and were so curious about our life back in the United States. We met "Guru" - a professor from the school who became our beloved tour guide while our own professor did business in Mysore. Guru invested all of his time and love in his American students, and enjoyed sharing his city with us and teaching us some real Indian Yoga! I am forever thankful for the lasting friendships we made with the students and professors at SDMIMD.
In Bangalore, we visited ol’ Aggie, Prasanna, originally from India, and went to Texas A&M to study Mechanical Engineering. He eventually came back to India and decided that what was most important was to repair the school system in his country. He began working with a non-governmental organization called Sikshana, that gives children in poor areas of India the opportunity to attend public school that actually provides a quality education. Sikshana partners with schools for five years to teach total quality management skills to administration and teachers, so that they may be exclusively dedicated to their students, which is often not the case in most Indian public schools. The school that we went to goes up to 7th grade, so the children were young and very excited to see us. They start learning English in the 4th grade, but we really had no way of communicating verbally. We spent our time singing and dancing with each other, and just being together. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I’ve only ever seen poverty like that on TV, but I came to the quick realization that poverty is real. These students made me think of my own students that I tutor, and it gave me a new outlook on teaching and education. I am thankful that these kids reminded me why children are so precious, and that they are a hope for the future. I was so inspired by this visit, that I returned to the United States and did a research paper and presentation with my partner on elementary education in India.
I also made lasting memories with the students and professor that I traveled with. These people are the reason I look back on my experience abroad so fondly. I think back to my time in India, and never had it ever been so clear to me that I was in exactly the right place at the right time. While we were abroad, we were each other's family. Everyone got to know each person on an individual level. We all had our struggles and our joys, and India rejuvenated us and taught us that we always had people around us who would love us and could bring us through anything. Some of the experiences we shared only they will be able to understand and appreciate fully, like our bus accident on the first day in Bangalore where we took off the mirror of a taxi cab, the long bus rides from city to city, discovering rats at the Pamposh Hotel and the Dominos beneath it, being body guards for our professor, and bringing the Aggie pride with the Texas A&M India Club. Although we may not be able to explain it fully, I can assure you that our lives were forever changed that January, and that we came back to the United States with a mission to share that joy and new worldly understanding with others.
We did many things while we traveled India. We had many corporate visits, from small local companies to huge globally known companies like Cisco and Infosys. We experienced many culturally historical sites all across the country, like the Bull Temple in Bangalore and the Taj Mahal in Agra. We ate dinner in palaces, rode elephants, and tried on Indian style clothing.
My favorite thing about our trip was the people we met and the group I grew with. We would meet people alongside the road, and make friends with other visitors at our hotel. We had an opportunity to spend a day at a business school, SDM Institute for Management Development (SDMIMD) in Mysore, India. Here, we mingled with students and got a glimpse of what higher education looks like. The students loved welcoming us as friends and were so curious about our life back in the United States. We met "Guru" - a professor from the school who became our beloved tour guide while our own professor did business in Mysore. Guru invested all of his time and love in his American students, and enjoyed sharing his city with us and teaching us some real Indian Yoga! I am forever thankful for the lasting friendships we made with the students and professors at SDMIMD.
In Bangalore, we visited ol’ Aggie, Prasanna, originally from India, and went to Texas A&M to study Mechanical Engineering. He eventually came back to India and decided that what was most important was to repair the school system in his country. He began working with a non-governmental organization called Sikshana, that gives children in poor areas of India the opportunity to attend public school that actually provides a quality education. Sikshana partners with schools for five years to teach total quality management skills to administration and teachers, so that they may be exclusively dedicated to their students, which is often not the case in most Indian public schools. The school that we went to goes up to 7th grade, so the children were young and very excited to see us. They start learning English in the 4th grade, but we really had no way of communicating verbally. We spent our time singing and dancing with each other, and just being together. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I’ve only ever seen poverty like that on TV, but I came to the quick realization that poverty is real. These students made me think of my own students that I tutor, and it gave me a new outlook on teaching and education. I am thankful that these kids reminded me why children are so precious, and that they are a hope for the future. I was so inspired by this visit, that I returned to the United States and did a research paper and presentation with my partner on elementary education in India.
I also made lasting memories with the students and professor that I traveled with. These people are the reason I look back on my experience abroad so fondly. I think back to my time in India, and never had it ever been so clear to me that I was in exactly the right place at the right time. While we were abroad, we were each other's family. Everyone got to know each person on an individual level. We all had our struggles and our joys, and India rejuvenated us and taught us that we always had people around us who would love us and could bring us through anything. Some of the experiences we shared only they will be able to understand and appreciate fully, like our bus accident on the first day in Bangalore where we took off the mirror of a taxi cab, the long bus rides from city to city, discovering rats at the Pamposh Hotel and the Dominos beneath it, being body guards for our professor, and bringing the Aggie pride with the Texas A&M India Club. Although we may not be able to explain it fully, I can assure you that our lives were forever changed that January, and that we came back to the United States with a mission to share that joy and new worldly understanding with others.
Lower Education in India |
When we returned from India, we had the opportunity to work in pairs and research a topic related to business in India that we were passionate about. My partner and I did research on Lower Education in India and the vital foundation it gives its people, as we were inspired by the work of Sikshana in Indian public schools. With a population of 1.2 billion people, over 50% of those people are under the age of 25, meaning there are over 600 million minds that can be educated to make a difference in the world.
This video shows our experience with the students we visited. Here is an overview of our research: what lower education looks like in India and who is taking charge to make a difference in public education, giving India a competitive advantage as a "B.R.I.C." country. You can access it using Prezi here. |