I Miss Hinton James

Today I got an e-mail from the alumni association of the University I did my undergrad from. It had something to do with 'freshmen', a term used to refer to first year undergraduate students in college in the United States. The mail brought back memories of my freshman year, particularly of the dorm I stayed in during that year.

I lived in Hinton James, one of the 33 dorms on campus. Ho Jo as we used to call it. Ho Jo primarily housed freshmen & sophomores (2nd year students). It had 10 floors and was home to approx. 800 students. Each floor had 4 wings and each wing was divided into suites containing 4 rooms each, with 2 people to a room. It really was like living with a very large family.

There was a basketball court on one side, volleyball court on another, parking lot on the third side, and a plush green lawn on the fourth side where students would soak up some sun during spring. The ground floor had a computer lab, laundry room, lounges and an assortment of vending machines for candy, soda, chips etc. I forget if Ho Jo had a vending machine for condoms as well - there were some such vending machines at other places on campus, I remember.

The biggest disadvantage of living in Hinton James was that we had to trudge up to North Campus for classes everyday. It was a good 15-20 minute walk, most of it uphill. Of course there were buses but they would generally be packed so a lot of people preferred to walk. The biggest advanatge was during the basketball season - the stadium was right behind the dorm!

I lived in three dorms over the course of my 4 years at the University of North Carolina but the reason Hinton James will always be special is because that's where I made my first friends in America. Friends who accepted someone so different from themselves without an ounce of hesitation or apprehension. Friends I met at the water fountain on my floor, or by the vending machines, or randomly while hanging out at the common passage. Friends I ordered loads of Gumby's/Papa John's pizzas with. Friends I played Secret Santa with during Christmas every year. Friends who would take me home for Thanksgiving b/c I had nowhere to go (I couldn't possibly come back to India for a 4 day holiday). Friends who would cheer me up whenever I got homesick. Friends who are all over the globe now but I'm still in touch with.

They say that friends you make in college stay with you for life. They say that for a reason. And Hinton James is a bloody good place to find such friends!

PS: The photo above has been taken from Flickr. If there are any copyright issues, please let me know and I'll take it off.

An American Education

Disclaimer : I was NOT paid by the US Department of Education to write this one :)

The trigger for this post was an article I read recently on the American education system, it's merits and de-merits.

Having done my schooling in India and undergrad & post-graduate education in the United States, I can truly appreciate the differences in the educational systems of the two countries. One can argue that primary & secondary education in India is much more rigorous and therefore better than that in the US. This is often cited as one of the main reasons Indian students do so well at colleges abroad.

However, as far as college education goes I strongly believe that the American education system is far superior to the Indian system. It’s more inclusive, well-rounded, and colleges in the US have much better infrastructure that give students easy access to material outside of their coursework, contributing to the quality of education. Not to mention sprawling campuses where you spend some of the most memorable years of your life!

Take for instance the fact that students can choose their own major irrespective of how much they scored in Class 12th (or senior year of high school for Americans). They can decide to major in any subject they want, whereas in India their Class 12th scores determine what subject they will be allowed to major in. That I think is the biggest limitation of the Indian higher education system. Kids are forced to take up subjects they have no interest in just because they couldn’t attain the minimum required marks for the subject of their choice. I think it’s pathetic.

Colleges in the US also require students to take a bunch of ‘electives’ during their first two years of college. These ‘electives’ could be as diverse as religion, astronomy, music, anthropology, archeology, European history post World War II, social psychology, sociology etc. for someone who might be interested in majoring in Economics, Computer Science or Biology!!

The fact that you can take classes across such diverse streams gives you a perspective on widespread issues and helps you develop as a person. And the best part is that you’re not even required to declare your major until the beginning of your 3rd year in college, so you can explore various subjects before deciding on what you want to major in. Even if you had declared a tentative major during your first two years, you have the option of changing it at the beginning of the 3rd year.

You also have the option of doing a double-major, i.e. specializing in two subjects simultaneously. I did a double-major in Economics & Psychology, which paved the way for a Masters in Behavioral Economics.

Your final grade in a class is determined not only by your final exam but also on the mid-term exam and a series of papers you write through the course of the semester. The papers that you’re expected to write would include a great deal of research outside your text books. You’d end up issuing books from the library, researching the internet, watching movies/documentaries on the subject etc. - in order to come up with a well-substantiated argument or point of view.

I remember once I had to watch a series of plays by Shakespeare in order to write my own interpretation of the way he used female characters in his plays - for Shakespeare was widely criticized for being a chauvinist while others argued that he created his female characters keeping in mind the times he wrote in! Another time I had to watch a series of movies on human behavior in different crisis situations in order to write a paper for my personality psychology class.

When I was in school in India I never thought exams could be completely tension-free! Which Indian student does? But exams in the US aren’t the least bit intimidating as they are more subjective than objective. They aren’t about memorizing information and regurgitating it onto the examination sheet. They’re about analyzing information in a logical or creative manner – depending on the context – and presenting it in the form of a coherent argument. The focus isn’t as much on questions that have a right & a wrong answer but more on one’s point of view.

There are open-book exams & take-home exams. This would sound like an alien concept to anyone who’s used to the rigmarole of the Indian education system. The terms are pretty self-explanatory. In open book exams, you're allowed to refer to your books while answering the questions, and in take-home exams you're given the questions a week or so in advance and you can submit your answers on the day of the exams.

In-class exams are usually unsupervised – something unimaginable in India! Rather they are based on the Honor Code system. Each student signs the Honor Code at the end of the exam stating that he/she has neither given nor received any unauthorized aid during the exam, and trust me, it works! Students do abide by it. I guess it works at a psychological level...and in any case I feel people in the West are inherently more ethical than Indians.

I think the biggest strengths of the American education system are that it lets you be what you want to be rather than shoving some antiquated redundant idea down your throat, doesn’t judge you on the basis of one instance alone, and encourages you to think beyond the text book, helping you develop as a much more well-rounded person.

More liberating than the Indian education system, don’t you think?

'He' Had A Dream

Ladies & Gentleman, It’s Barack Obama for America!!

I was going to write a post on my absolutely fabulous trip to Bombay last week, but I'm assuming the election of Barack Obama to the post of the President of the United States is a bigger defining moment in History & world politics, and therefore it should come first. My post on Bombay will just have to wait :)

Who would have thought that a Black, or a “person of color” as non-whites are referred to in politically correct terms, would become the President of a predominantly White America?

Obama won by a landslide. This signifies change, for sure. I guess Americans have been craving change for a while, and they’ve never desired it more desperately than now when their economy is battered & their country alienated courtesy George Bush’s ‘Shock-N-Awe’ military policy across the globe.

Obama’s election signifies progressiveness, but it also proves that skin color can only run so deep. Ultimately, it’s your vision for your country & its people, your beliefs and how steadfastly you stand by them, that will see you through.

This is indeed a historic moment for African-Americans in America. For centuries they were enslaved, segregated. There was a time not too long ago, when everything in America was segregated – schools, work places, public transport. There were separate schools for black & white kids. The ones for white kids had better infrastructure, of course. Offices were segregated along racial lines. Blacks sat in a different portion of the bus/train, usually at the back & were expected to give up their seats to Whites.

The Civil Rights Movement officially started in the mid-1950s with the Montgomery Bus Boycott when the Blacks of Montgomery, Alabama, led by Rosa Parks (who was asked to give up her seat to make room for a White passenger, decided that they would boycott the city buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted, instead of being relegated to the back when a white boarded. The Movement got its nationwide pioneer in the form of Martin Luther King Jr. who, through his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, galvanized the African-Americans of the entire nation to fight for their freedom. America to this day celebrates his birthday in January as a national holiday.

Unlike MLK Jr. however, Obama does not ride the wave of Black politics. He has been voted in as much by Whites as by Blacks. It’s his vision for America & the constructive role it can play in the world at a time of financial & political crises, that saw him at the hem of the country. In spite of considerable improvement in race relations across America, African-Americans still continue to live at the fringes of society, for a large part. But change seems to have finally caught up with the country.

Barack for America, I say.