I remember my first day of classes like yesterday. I was early to my class and the students eventually started filling the classroom. This was the first time I had seen students from different nationalities all in one place. Then the Professor entered the classroom and I raised to greet him as a token of respect, as I used to do in India, but no one else stood up and I felt really shocked that the other students didn’t acknowledge the teacher’s presence and show him the due respect to teachers. I was not even recovered from this first shock when I saw one of the students in the front row raised his legs and put them on the desk, with his shoes pointed to the teacher’s face. That was almost like a free fall for me, as if I had banged my body on the hard rock. I am sure if I was that student in the first row in India, I probably would have never seen the classroom again…

In terms of teaching, I think the classes here are geared towards understanding the subject in a way that you can solve problems rather than memorizing and spitting it in the exam. It’s more hands-on learning. GPA was a new thing for me as we had a percentage system. Also new for me was that I could ask questions to the teachers and that I didn’t have to be worried about my grades if I confronted the teachers in a way they didn’t like. The environment of learning and freedom of expressing your ideas and acknowledgment of those ideas was new to me.

In New Delhi you cannot walk on a sidewalk without bumping into someone else or without smelling the aromas of the roadside food, without noticing the colorful attires of people, the dirt-riddled shoes, although you may have polished them before you left home, the shirt collars turned black after the day outing, the noises of bicycle chimes to the honks of a Toyota Highlander, all at the same time, sharing the same road.

I come from a country of 1.25 Billion people and yet, when I was in India, I only had a chance to interact with people from my own city and I had never been friends with anyone from any other state in India. When I came to U of A, my roommates were from a different state in India, with very different culture and an altogether different language. We communicated in English since I couldn’t understand their native language, with its different alphabet and grammar rules. That was strange to meet my fellow countrymen, that I had never known or met before, in an altogether new country. I can never underestimate the value of having an opportunity of befriending people from all over the world.

The strangest thing I experienced so far was successfully playing cricket as a team together with students from other countries, even with huge differences in our cultures and values.

I found people of Fayetteville very kind and helpful. Never in my life in New Delhi had anyone greeted me on the road until I personally knew them; this happened to me only in Fayetteville.

The beauty of Fayetteville is impeccable, being located on the edge of the Boston Mountains while being deep in the Ozarks. I found Fayetteville to be scenic, calming and a perfect place for a student, away from distractions of life. I think it was very safe, as I never felt otherwise, while walking down from Bell Engineering Center to my apartments, almost three blocks away, even in the middle of the night.