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The Times of India has a story about what an Indian university student thought were the most surprising aspects of his experience studying in the US.
Aniruddh Chaturvedi came from Mumbai to Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., where he is majoring in computer science. This past summer he interned at a tech company in Silicon Valley.
It's interesting reading, some of which you might expect, about economic differences, supermarkets, obesity, etc. made his list of surprising things.
But Americans in general seem to come across to Aniruddh somewhat better than we come across to ourselves:
- Nobody talks about grades here.
- Everyone is highly private about their accomplishments and failures.
- Far from being competitive, Students were highly collaborative
- Strong ethics — everyone has a lot of integrity
- Girls are not very promiscuous, contrary to most Hollywood films
- Almost every single American has access to basic food, clothing, water and sanitation.
- Emphasis on physical fitness/being outdoorsy
His observations were not filled with the anti-American observations that Americans have come to expect from visitors, or that many of us see in our daily lives. He is not totally unaware of some less negative aspects, discrimination, waste of food, money, and prices. But by and large these aspects did not seem a major part of his impressions.
One wonders whether his naïveté will get bruised and he will come to his senses as his studies progress, or if the US is actually nowhere near as bad as many of us think it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @10:15PM
This isn't a troll. Why is it moderated troll? It is right in the linked article.
"Chaturvedi [the man's opinions whom we are talking about] ended his post with a link to a video of "America F--- Yeah" from the movie "Team America."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Adamsjas on Friday October 17 2014, @10:48PM
So What's your point?
Taken by itself, that clip is ambiguous, and and being a foreign student, he might not have even understood it.
Its certainly out of context with the rest of the article.
The kid sounds pretty spoiled if you ask me. Hires someone to go shopping with him so he doesn't have to
carry any purchases or make any decisions, complains there is no one to hire to do this in the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 18 2014, @12:47AM
The kid sounds pretty spoiled if you ask me. Hires someone to go shopping with him so he doesn't have to
carry any purchases or make any decisions, complains there is no one to hire to do this in the US.
It is relative but in India even the middle class have people to do that sort of thing. In fact it is so common that it has become much harder for an Indian ex-pat in the US to find an Indian bride - they don't want to come to the US where they won't have any household staff to do the grunt work. Even in the US it used to be like that about 100 years ago. It is one of the symptoms of a society with extreme differences in economic class. It is the same in the Phillippines where the typical condo will have a "maids room" about the size of a closet where the live-in maid sleeps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 18 2014, @12:49AM
...Hires someone to go shopping with him so he doesn't have to carry any purchases...
Maybe stores/markets in India don't have shopping carts? Or, to put it another way, perhaps a servant is cheaper than a shopping cart?