India: Culture, Traditions, & Globalization testimonials
It is no exaggeration for me to say that my participation in the 1971 ACM India program had a profound effect on both my career and personal life. During my stay in Pune, I studied everyday life in a nearby village to better understand how the intersection of ecology, economics, and culture played out in how village families managed a key resource, namely their cows. As a result of this experience, I became interested in working in interdisciplinary settings and in international development. Now, 40 years later, I am still working internationally at the intersection of environment and economics at the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Moreover, my ACM experience instilled in me a lifelong attraction to Indian culture, especially its food and music.
—Keith Kozloff, India, 1971
Studying off-campus can be one of the most valuable learning experiences, opening your eyes to new perspectives in the surroundings of a different culture. It is the chance of a lifetime, and you feel lucky just to be there. I would always be thinking, for when is there ever a chance like this? You have the privilege of bringing home the complex knowledge of a unique culture along with unforgettable memories. I am also thankful that I had the opportunity to travel to many different places all over India!
—Megan Maurice, India, Fall 2008
During a festival, a girl told me, "Tonight, Pune is the best city in the world!" And I couldn't agree more. During my time on the ACM India program, Pune really became like a second home. Being immersed in such a dynamic environment provided such amazing experiences. It was all the big and little things that added up: dancing in the streets during festivals, spending time with my host family, traveling all over India, weaving through cars and motorcycles when crossing the street, learning how to wrap a sari, riding in a rickshaw, conversing with wonderful people, tea time, and so much more! I'd go back in a heartbeat.
—Isabel Peris, India, Fall 2010
Studying in India and living with a host family was the most difficult and most rewarding experience of my life. Living in an Indian city (as a student, not a tourist) expanded my world and challenged me to consider new ways of thinking, acting, and learning. Seven years later, I still reflect on my experience as a foreigner in a culture where everything seemed new and different at first: new food, new language, new alphabet, new weather, and new surroundings. I went from being highly literate in English to barely being able to sound out store signs in Marathi. Now as an English teacher and coordinator, I work with hundreds of immigrants and refugees going through a similar adjustment.
—Jessica Schachterle, India, 2001
My journey with the ACM India Program was a truly self-defining experience, as it so greatly enhanced my understanding of of the world, of myself, and of what is important to pursue in life in general. India as a country is so complex and dynamic, with such a remarkable mix of ancient customs and lifestyles and a modern, globalized economy that a visitor cannot help but learn a great deal so long as they know where and how to look, and the ACM program was a critical guiding hand in this respect. From the professors and the classes they taught, to the staff and the trips they organized (both in Pune and in the country at large), everything was well calibrated to give us a good picture of "the Indian way," from which we in turn could learn so much. I left the country with a profound respect for (and connection with) the people I met there, which I am confident I will maintain for the rest of my life, and that would not have been possible without the ACM program.
—Nate Grady, India, Fall 2009
My ACM India program experience not only introduced me to a different world, but to a group of friends who were also interested in living beyond their own world. With these lifetime friendships, I made a home in Pune. While exploring the city and getting to know a new family, I created one of my own among the program's other participants.
—Addy Najera, India, Fall 2008
In choosing where to study abroad, I sought an environment which would challenge me intensely and turn the world-as-I-knew-it upside-down; my stint in India did both unequivocally. Even more than challenge me, India enchanted me with her dizzying complexities, both beautiful and problematic. I left India with a greater sense of self, of the world and with new-found love for a culture and her people, specifically for the seven individuals—my family—with whom I lived. Staying with a host family in Pune is one of the prime positives of the ACM India program, there is no better way to learn and live within Indian culture than to do so in the home of an Indian family. I am fortunate now to carry my experience with me wherever I go; sights, sounds and smells which will forever color the facets of my life.
—Sarah Schulte, India, Fall 2008
I loved my experience on the ACM India program. I walked away from it with wonderful friends, more confidence, a greater appreciation for the people around me, a more complete and robust framework of the world, and a better knowledge of what I am capable of. They all sound like stereotypical things you say, but the atmosphere, the people, even the bad experiences, all benefited me somehow, and I can truly say that I affected other's lives as they did mine. I never thought I could change my comfort zone so drastically and love it so much. I'll cherish every spoken and unspoken experience and lesson, carrying them with me where ever I go. I will always feel at home in Pune.
—Elizabeth Weigler, India, Fall 2008
Although spending five months in Pune, India was one of the most challenging things I have ever done, it was also one of the most fulfilling. India is a place where intense beauty and sadness are both intertwined and inseparable to an extreme that I have yet to see anywhere else. I felt such a sense of empowerment and success when I became able to navigate the streets of Pune by myself, or when I could hold a conversation in Marathi with my host mother or a rickshaw driver. Those little things caused me to gain a much broader understanding of the world.
—Katie Blanchard, India, Fall 2008
The ACM India Program was possibly the most challenging and enlightening experience of my life. I am infinitely glad that I choose this program, and could not have hoped for a more rich and diverse introduction to India. Everything, from my home stay to classes, gave me an in-depth look at India in a manner unique to ACM's program. Thanks to the program, I now have a strong connection with India that I am certain will remain for the rest of my life.
—Aisha Mergaert, India, Fall 2010
My experience with the ACM India program was nothing short of amazing. I loved learning about India and living with my Indian family, to get the real feel of what it meant to be Indian. During my 5 months, I learned so much about the culture, religion, and the poverty in that country, that I have shaped my future aspirations around mobilizing and engaging people to make positive change for the causes they care about. When I returned to the US I was so culture shocked with grief for leaving my Indian family, love for the simple things in life, and a realization that what we complain about in the US is trivial compared to what the rest of the world faces. However, I also realized that we can do better on a number of issues, including training great activists who can promote and enact plans on how to reduce global poverty.
—Samantha Gibb, India, Fall 2006
The ACM India program was the keystone in my career as a scholar of South Asia. I learned to live in India and to conduct real field research on the program, while I was introduced to key scholars and intellectuals in Pune, and this gave me inspiration for future work. At the time, it was perhaps the only opportunity in the American academy to study Marathi, and the program gave me a firm foundation in that language. My experience made it possible for me to enter Harvard University as a funded Masters student, and then to complete a PhD at Columbia University in the History of Religions. As a faculty member first at the University of Pennsylvania then at the University of Washington, I have drawn on my ACM experiences and contacts, which are now vital to my work. As someone who has run study abroad programs to India, I see the ACM India Studies program as a model template that I continue to hold in high regard.
—Christian Novetzke, India, 1991
As privileged Americans, few places in the world offer a more foreign backdrop for us to learn from than India. Each day, I was constantly reminded that my growing comfort with rickshaws buzzing by in the streets, or samosa vendors calling out to us hoping we would stop in to spend a few rupees, were but a couple of minute parts to the complexities of that mesmerizing country. What better way to expand your comfort zone, than to remove yourself from it altogether. The ACM India program gives you the ability to reform the foundation of your character, and I struggle to imagine any student regretting their decision to study and live in India.
—Tyler Quinn, India, Fall 2007