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| Mumbai |
Experts exist, but sometimes not just in the places we
expect. Normally titles and degrees, or punditry and talking heads on TV,
measure knowledge we then assume. I have
gained immensely from people who fall into these categories. But today, there
is an expert who reports from the ground. As social media has proven, those who
are in the midst of a place and its culture often can add a perspective that paints
a picture that educates even the experts. Yash is one of those. Aside from
being an exceptionally bright student at a major research university, Yash also
provides insight into what students like him look for in a university
education. In the first part of his interview, Yash not only describes the world
of student life in a great school in India, he also gives invaluable advice to
those seeking to recruit students like him.
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| Young Yash |
1) Can you tell us a little about your education and
your life growing up in India? Where are you from and where did you go to
school. For those who do not know about your city or your school can you give
some details to paint a picture?
–– I come from a business family in Mumbai, India and
this reality has played a very large part in my upbringing. It has decided my path in college, my
aspirations after, and even certain aspects of my personality.
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| BD Somani International School |
I went to St. Mary’s School – an all boys’ school for
eleven years and then did the IB Diploma Program at BD Somani International
School for two years. I would describe
my first school as a fraternity house with a hundred and twenty boys and even
after all these years, some of us are very close. It was a huge school for Mumbai’s standards
with three sports grounds and two large buildings and almost fifteen hundred
students. In terms of competitiveness
though, it did not match my second school, which only had fifty-five of us. Here, we were far more serious about college
applications, conferences and all the typical resume–building activities unlike
before. From my second school, almost a
third of us are now studying in the United States, a third in the United
Kingdom and the rest in India.
However studying in the United States is not my first
time outside India. I fondly remember
travelling throughout my childhood; the tally is at 24 countries now. I feel lucky that large parts of my childhood
memories are abroad and it’s definitely contributed strongly to my
international outlook on life today.
About my city, well it's not quite the way it was shown
in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Known
to very few, Mumbai is actually a collection of islands detached from the
Indian mainland. A good portion is very
well developed with skyscrapers, shopping centers, movie theaters and even a
financial district. I’d describe it as
Hollywood and Wall Street in the same city that is energetic, enterprising and
chaotic 24/7.
2) Why did you decide to come to the US for university?
Did you consider the UK or other places or were you convinced the US was best
for you and if so why?
––My cousins came to the US to study nine years
before I did and they played the biggest role in convincing me to follow suit. I considered the UK very seriously as well; in
fact, I am a British citizen – it would have been far more convenient for me to
study in the UK! Despite that, my
understanding of the differences at the time mainly boiled down to the US being
a place where you learn a lot through interacting with students and organizations
outside the typical academic setup whereas the experience in the UK seemed a
bit polarized towards academics and alcohol (because of the drinking age being
lower, not that it really matters). Additionally
throughout my life in India, I have been part of the system that tests you at
the end of a term, exactly the way it is in the UK. That way, you end up
wasting most of the semester and then concentrating your efforts in the last
few days. In the US however, you are
tested almost every week and I think this method teaches you a lot in terms of
time management, work ethic and also what you finally take away from the
courses. Lastly, when I was choosing
colleges, the UK was in recession and this only pushed me further away from
studying there.
3) You have great insights about what colleges and
universities should talk about when meeting with students in India. Could you
give a bit of a primer for those people so both they and the students and
families will get the most useful information?
––If you look at the list of colleges most Indian
students use when applying, you’ll notice that it contains schools that are basically
renowned and prestigious. The reason for
this is that India is an extremely xenophobic society – we hate information
that is new, uncertain or unfamiliar so it makes us accept well–established
opinions as the truth. So the reason
most Indians aspire to study at an Ivy–League school is that it removes their
fears of the generally foreign educational culture in America. This leads to the perception that post–college
success is almost entirely dependent on the college you attend (even though
that isn’t accurate at all).
So my
advice to an admissions officer making a presentation to students in India is
to keep discussion around the emotional aspects of the university (history,
beauty, culture etc) to a minimum; take these up in the Q&A session for
those who want to know more or have some local alumnus present who could assist
here.
More importantly though, if possible,
talk up strengths like employment records (being as specific as possible),
diversity of clubs and organizations, the strong foothold of alumni in specific
areas, special programs that are interdisciplinary in nature and other such unique
aspects of the university that can help a student in his or her post–college
life. Indians love numbers too, so give
as much objective information as possible – that way you won’t be as foreign to
the Indian student ever again. If you
can convey that a student has great chances to succeed in a particular field
after graduating from that university, you will win his/her attention.
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| Yash and friends |
Tomorrow, Yash shares his expertise again; this time, however,
he describes, in wonderful detail, for students and parents his journey to the US.
Those looking for a guide to follow on what some think of as an arduous journey
will find his advice worth following.
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