In defence of scholarship students
Over the weekend, I was catching up with my roommate from college. We have shared a long friendship with a variety of memories ranging from sprints across snow in our pajamas and trench coats for getting ice cream in the middle of the night in subzero temperatures to taking academically challenging classes and doing intense research together. Today, we are both back in India and working in the development sector after having finished our undergraduate studies at Brown University. My friend has been working with schools in India to make education more accessible, relevant and well-rounded. I myself have written the civil services examination and have been working in Shillong as an Indian Police Service Officer (commonly known as an IPS officer) for the past one year with a focus on Crimes Against Women and Children.
You can tell that we have similar passions and stories to share. We both grew up in India, went abroad to study and returned back to work at the grassroots. We both have our bearings and interests in India. And yet surprisingly, this weekend my friend mentioned that she would like to re-locate to Udaipur so that she could understand “India” better and be more “Indian.” I was taken aback with what she had to say. I shot back, “You can hardly say that you’re not Indian enough. After all, you have lived in India all your life. It was only for 4 years of under-graduation that you have lived outside. Moreover, India is so diverse. We are all Indian in our own unique way.” However, as an after thought I added, “But I guess, I know what you intend to say. You probably want to understand a certain side of India better — a side that we have seen only in glimpses.”
This afterthought came as we both realise that we never went to a government college or university in India which provides an exposure that attending Indian private schools or living in the localities inhabited by middle class Indians does not. In government colleges in India, people come from myriad backgrounds due to a combination of different factors such as competitive exams giving everyone an equal opportunity, reservation, low tuition costs, etc. Often individuals from very humble backgrounds are studying side by side with the children of celebrities. It is a beautiful thing one gets to see in colleges in India.
However, that being said, a diverse student body may be found in universities abroad as well. Institutions such as Brown University and many others provide scholarships to domestic as well as international students thereby enhancing access to a world class education. It is true that the tuition costs at these institutions are prohibitively high resulting in a large percentage of the student population to be from the creamy layer of developed countries. Yet, the need to diversify the student body has led these institutions to offer need-blind scholarships to students. This implies that admissions are provided to meritorious students without considering their financial needs altogether. Once they are admitted, the financial aid office works out an appropriate scholarship to make it possible for all the admitted students to attend the university. As a result, there is no bias against admitting students who may need financial aid from the university.
So it is untrue that every student who attends college abroad belongs to a family as well off as portrayed in Kabhi Khushie Kabhi Gam or the likes. I myself was a scholarship student and was fortunate that with hardwork, good grades and decent recommendations from my school teachers I was able to attend an Ivy League Institution. However, this “fortune” is often viewed as “privilege.” During my police training, I found that a lot of people judged me for being fluent in english and not always speaking in Hindi (even though my mother tongue is Bengali and I should not be expected to speak in Hindi all the time), for being relatively liberal in my thoughts (which most middle class eastern Indians are — irrespective of whether they have studied abroad), and lastly for being boastful regarding my education and background (which was all true and not at all exaggerated! Eventually, I had to stop mentioning the name of my university even though all my colleagues who went to colleges in India could do so without any judgment. I would simply say ‘I studied political science.’ In fact, I could not even say that I also studied international relations as it is a subject which is not offered in India at the undergraduate level and would inevitably lead to the question- “Oh, which college did you go to?”).
The point of this article is not to create a sob story. I am sure a lot of readers are already rolling their eyes and thinking, “Oh poor rich girl with all opportunities in life is crying about some silly social adjustment issues.” Additionally, by no means do I mean to undermine the very real struggles of a lot of others in making it to prestigious government colleges/ job training centres in India. The intention is to simply paint a true and realistic picture of educational opportunities abroad, of the experience of studying there with a scholarship and of then returning to work in India.
I shall start from the beginning. Throughout my school days I was always interested in the social sciences. My family always made fun of me for this as I come from a family of mathematicians and engineers. Amidst this, my mother, though a mathematics teacher herself, supported my interest. And yet as an Indian middle class parent, she frequently reminded me that if I wanted to study social sciences and understand policy making well, I would have to go to the very best of institutions. “Average institutions teaching social sciences will not fetch you a good job,” she would say. That is where my aspiration of receiving the very best of education in social sciences and public policy began.
The grind began early as it did not take long to realise that in order to achieve my dream I had to be a student with unquestionably good grades in academics and a good track record in co-curriculars. With the support of both my parents and my grandmother, I was able to top my classes in the private schools that I attended (my mother kept switching jobs and cities and as a result I had to attend different schools. She was a single mother trying to improve her income and support her children. So my sister and I moved often in our childhood). Further, my parents especially my father ensured I was a strong girl by introducing me to karate at a very young age (the age of 4!). I was a national level winner in my school days. Balancing both and also having a social life was tough. But I have no complaints. Being busy helped me navigate through a lot of social and family problems that one faces during their adolescence. Moreover, I had to build my profile to get into the best of colleges.
When I was in the final years of my schooling, I realised that the best of institutions offering courses in social sciences such as political science, international relations, economics, sociology were mostly abroad. I also realised that for my parents to send me to such an institution they would have to sell off property or take a huge loan. So I found myself rejecting offers from LSE and other prestigious universities in the UK as they offered no scholarship. I instead chose options that came with scholarships packages. I ultimately chose to go to Brown University — which though less heard of in India, is an Ivy League Institution in the US with a strong focus on the politics, economy and society of India. They had offered me a full scholarship covering all my direct expenses including tuition, health insurance and room and board — thereby making my dream of going to a world class institution come true! In fact, there were several moments during the application process to universities in the US that had been eye opening and encouraging. For instance, at the time of sending out my applications, there was a huge application fee of $70–75 charged by each university. However, to my utter surprise, when I wrote to the universities explaining that I could not afford their application fees they waived off the fee for me!
So I reached the city of Providence in Rhode Island brimming with dreams and positivity, even though the Bengali in me was already shivering on arrival in the month of August. Alas! I soon began feeling homesick, especially when I saw other domestic and international students move in with the help of their parents whereas I had just showed up with two huge suitcases and with no idea where to get bedsheets, towels and other basics for my dorm room. In fact, at the time I began questioning the common perception in India that in the US, children are mature, move out of home at the age of 18 and are expected to be financially independent when they do so. Fortunately, I soon got busy selecting classes, opening a bank account, getting a mobile connection, etc.
Within 2 weeks of arrival, classes began and suddenly my worries were different altogether — “How do I keep up?” I had made a rookie mistake of choosing classes that were too high a level in my first year of college. This had happened because being an A grade student and having taken many Higher Level classes in my IB education during my final years of schooling, I could skip the beginner level classes in college. So, being an achiever all my life I confidently signed up for classes at the intermediate level (rather than beginner level) in economics, math, sociology and political science only to find myself in a mess.
I might have been amongst the few students silly enough to have made this mistake. Most other international students had parents or at least siblings who had studied abroad before them and knew how to navigate through the liberal arts education system which allows you to choose your own classes. For me, it took sometime to realise that the reading was way more than I was used to and that the assessment was research heavy. Further, my analytical and writing skills were not upto the mark. All of this took time to sink in since the rote learning system of education in India does not even consider these as skills to be honed. Writing in India is considered to be the outcome of the “flow of the pen” or is considered to be “a flair that only some possess.” As a result, my grades were dismal during the first couple of years of college.
Apart from choosing the wrong classes, what also made my grades fall was my sudden need to earn. My parents did send me money for out of pocket expenses through the first three years of college. But I used to run out of it in no time since I had never really handled money before let alone a different currency. Everything seemed expensive at the time. I remember going to a Starbucks on campus for a cup of coffee with a Spanish friend. The urge for the cup of coffee was due to the Bengali in me constantly and idiotically shivering in the month of August and for the need to make friends with this cool girl with gorgeous golden hair that I had come across during orientation. I remember that at the Starbucks, I kept converting everything into Indian rupees and going crazy with how expensive everything was. I ordered the signature Pumpkin Spiced Latte just to spit it out on the first sip. It took me a year to figure out how to adjust all prices to PPP first and that my go-to order at Starbucks is the Hot Medium sized Medium Roast coffee.
Unfortunately, for a long time I spent all the money sent by my parents in no time! In my own bid to be independent, I took up several jobs on campus rather than ask my parents for money time and again. This turned out to be rather exciting at first. I took up jobs in the many campus restaurants and cafes and learnt how to make pizzas, paninis, fancy sandwiches, smoothies and shakes, falafel rolls, and so much more. As I gained some skills from college, I took up “skilled jobs” that payed above minimum wage. These were essentially research jobs. These too were exciting as I ended up learning about refugees across the world, Indo-China relations and so much more! All the jobs though exciting would exhaust me — something I didn’t know initially. I thereby took a break from jobs during my second year in a bid to improve my grades.
These experiences however taxing at the time helped me grow and mature in leaps and bounds. The need to adjust, earn and do well academically was a humbling experience. Further, I found that I often suffered from nostalgia and homesickness that made me attached to my country like never before. I learnt how to cook all varieties of Indian food. Moreover, I contested and became the Events Chair of the South Asians Student’s Association in college, which gave me an opportunity to meet and celebrate festivals with other Indians on campus. By my third year, I had chosen the South Asian track for my double major in Political Science and International Relations. With this, I could travel to India every summer and spend some of my most cherished times doing research and social work in Vadodra, Shahadra, Jhagadia, Bali (the one in rural Rajasthan, not Indonesia! ) and Kolkata. The South Asian track also gave me the opportunity to attend lectures and classes on Indian films, politics, history and economics by some of the world’s leading Indian scholars including Ashutosh Varshney, Amartya Sen, Kaushik Basu, Vazira Zamindar and Lila Fruzetti. Once I had found my area of interest and passion, my research skills, writing skills and grades all improved drastically. In my final semester at Brown, I finally got 4 “A”s — something that I had worked so hard for during my entire time there (even though it might have been a joke for many others).
All in all, I wrote this personal journey of going abroad to study on a scholarship just to put it out there that it wasn’t a rich Mumbaikar’s story of going for a luxury student exchange program (no offence to those who do live that life. Why not, if you can?) and that experiences of studying abroad can vary person to person. Additionally, I wanted to highlight that just because one has had an experience that an average middle class Indian may not usually have had, it does not make her any less Indian.
And yet, I too similar to my friend from college continue to understand and learn more about our country everyday. My latest effort in this regard, has been binge watching the series “Mahabharat” on Hotstar with my husband just to refresh my memory of what I had read in Amar Chitra Katha comics as a child. After all, we do live in a nations with a lofty history and culture brewed in a melting pot over millions of years.
