Lessons to be learnt

Updated on: Thursday, August 05, 2010

Lifestyle lessons are being given to US-bound students from India. The lessons are key to overcoming the culture shock that many under and postgraduate students face when entering the US especially from urban middle class homes and smaller Indian cities.

At least 10,000 students go to the US every year from across India and the pre-departure orientation conducted by the USIEF (Education Advising Services, United States-India Educational Foundation) at the American Center, Delhi educated Indian students on cultural differences, greetings and even body language. Other issues that students were asked to be careful about included sensitive political topics, ethics etc.

Students were told that American youth like space and so they should maintain a “talking distance” of at least 10 yards. They were also told not to break into tales of woe when asked how they were doing, by their American counterparts as this one liner was just a type of greeting.

Rupali Verma, Education Advisor for Northern India said that for many students “food, clothes, safekeeping of documents, housing and culture” were all areas of adjustment and concern. She stressed that carrying pirated CDs, DVDs and university course books was legally banned. Renuka Raja Rao, Country Coordinator of USIEF said that students’ “lives can be disrupted by the cosmetic difference in lifestyles between the US and India,” that was why lifestyle orientation is mandatory for Indian students who enroll in American universities post-school. Steven King from the US Department of Homeland Security advised students to keep passports with the 1-94 and 1-20 forms (departure and citizenship records respectively) on their persons and the rest of the papers either in a file or stored in computers for easy downloading.

And yes, students who were going to smaller university towns were asked to carry good Indian pressure cookers — because at the end of the day most of them could want to eat Indian food!

Lessons to be learnt

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