Getting Started!

Hello!

My name is Akashi and I am a first year MSEd International Educational Development student at PennGSE. I am from India and this is my first time studying in the United States. This also happens to be my second Masters degree. I live off-campus (in West Philly to be precise) and am loving being a part of this diverse and dynamic community that we call PennGSE. 

Like I said earlier, this is my second Masters degree. However, that does not, by any measure, mean that I am better prepared for graduate work at Penn than the rest of my peers! GSE is hard work! But I think I'm doing a decent job of keeping up so far. Having had taken a full course load this semester (five courses!), I spend a whole lot of my time reading and working on assignments. To makes matters worse, I'm still sort of on India time and end up staying up most nights! (Actually that's a lie! I stay up to skype with my fiance and my family back home.) Also, since I'm coming back to school after spending three years in the work force, getting used to the school routine will take some time. But I'm not complaining! I love my classes and all my professors are absolutely brilliant! I can already tell its going to be an exciting year and I'm looking forward to it. 

So far, I have had little trouble adjusting to the American classroom. Sure they are different from classrooms back home, but perhaps my previous stint at grad school made this transition easier for me. The primary difference between the American classroom and the standard Indian classroom is that while the former encourages a more participatory learning atmosphere, the later rarely sees students contributing to the lecture. But my previous degree was in Journalism and my cohort was an exceptionally opinionated and bright group of people (quite like my cohort this time round - I guess I'm just lucky!) so we had class discussions galore. So this is just like a continuation of that for me. However, I can understand how most Indian students from more traditional subject backgrounds might have trouble adjusting to this atmosphere. All I can say to them is, the less self-conscious you are, the better. After all, you're here to learn - from your professors and your peers - and what better way to do that than to talk to them - in and out of class. 

Besides this, Penn and Philadelphia are great for international students. Penn has a huge international student community and multiple socializing and academic opportunities for all that I fully intend to take advantage of! And if you follow this blog, you will definitely hear of them too! :)

Till next time.

Akashi :)

P.S. My cohort had a picnic at Rittenhouse Square last Thursday. Fun times! :)
http://iedp-penngse.tumblr.com/post/31743670863/iedp-picnic