More Aggies from around the globe

Editor’s Note: This is the final part of our three part series featuring the life of students at USU from overseas. We hope you have enjoyed getting to know more about our world-wide classmates.

We’ll finish up our trip around the world with a stop in India, where education is at the top of the priority list.

“Everybody is expected to go to college, and for some reason in India, everyone is going into the engineering side or the medical side,” Saumya Dwivedi, a nutrition and food science major from Bombay, who recently graduated from Utah State, said.

“People would still look down upon you, ‘Oh – you’re not a good student, you’re going into art.’ They want to see success. So we have a trend after high school, do you want to go to engineering or do you want to go to medicine? Everything is fixed.”

Dwivedi said the parents are expected to provide a college education for their children and it is important to the parents to make sure their children go to college.

“When I was growing up and in college, there was a bookstore close to my house and I used to tell my parents I would work in the bookstore and pay for college,” Dwivedi said. “My parents wanted me to read a book rather than work in a bookstore.”

Dwivedi said the villages are an entirely different culture, but the government is working to educate them, as well.

“I think that’s the main reason for the poverty; you have a large family where you can’t provide enough, you can’t provide the education and then it’s the cycle,” Dwivedi said. “Now the government is trying to educate the older people with night classes in the villages where you learn to read and write and make them understand what they should and should not do. But it will take a while because we are so densely populated, you have to do something for a long time and in large numbers. The villages are a whole different culture.”

Beyond education, there are many subtle differences between America and India that affect daily life.

“The light switches, it’s opposite – down is on. You just have to get used to it. Even the doors, most open to the inside,” Dwivedi said. “I remember the first time it snowed. I spent 20 minutes staring at the snow outside.”

Dwivedi is now in Boston, where she recently got a job soon after she graduated from Utah State, but she said her biggest piece of advice to students still studying at Utah State would be to reach out and talk to people who look different.

“I’ve seen a few people who walk up and talk to people who look different, but now is the right age to get exposed [to different people]. To see how we are different and how we are similar, otherwise when you start working in the world, you have no time. Make one friend in the three or four years you are here that is an international student.”

Many students at Utah State may not remember the friends they made in college and they may never keep in touch with the classmates they had from semester to semester, but in China classmates are friends well past graduation.

Hui Gao, a graduate student in electrical engineering, said this is one of the biggest differences between the college structure in the United States and that of China.

In China, about 30 students are grouped together upon entrance to the college, and these groups become like family, he said.

“You live with the same people for four years. Activities and sports revolve around these groups. All sports are based on the departments,” Gao said. “Here, roommates are chosen depending on where you want to live. That group has the same schedule for four years, or at least two. You can choose your schedule your junior and senior year.”

Gao said although he doesn’t get the chance to spend as much time with these friends, since he chose to come to study in the United States, he still keeps in touch with them.

Once Gao arrived in the United States, he said he immediately noticed some obvious differences.

“The people here are not what I’m used to looking into,” Gao said.

Gao said although he misses the smell of Chinese food, you can get good Chinese in Logan. Gao he said recommends The Great Wall, and be sure to ask for the Chinese menu.

“What you like for Chinese food is different from us. Tiny spicy chicken – we don’t eat that at all in China …We don’t like sweet and saucy chicken.”

“The food here, it’s hard to say I like it,” Gao said. “The food here is so cold. I like warm food. We don’t like cold sandwiches and cold everything, even cold water – we drink hot water, we use hot water to make teas and we just drink hot water.”

Leanna Reynolds, a master’s student in soil science from New Zealand, agreed with Gao that finding good food in a foreign country is a daunting task.

“The biggest shock for me when I came here was the bread; it has sugar in it and has a funny texture,” Reynolds said. “It took me a couple of months and lots of experimentation to find a decent bread I could enjoy.”

“I have to buy organic milk here,” Reynolds said. “Our butter is yellow and not white. I pick up drinks here and see things like corn syrup – we don’t have corn syrup at home, we just use normal sugar.” Reynolds said she usually cooks at home and tries to find things she likes.

Reynolds attended the University in New Zealand and was selected to attend Utah State as a research assistant. However, in New Zealand, the government may actually pay you to attend school, if you qualify. Reynolds said she got about $150 each week from the government while she was in school and she doesn’t have to pay any of that back. Student loans for tuition, much like student loans in the United States, must be paid back, but the student allowance does not.

Reynolds said although there has been a lot to get used to, she immediately appreciated the clothing market in the United States.

“I bought a wool shirt here for $20, at home that would have been $80. Levi’s at home are $120,” she said.

Reynolds said there are a lot of things she likes about the United States, but she misses the small town, market-street feel of New Zealand.

The social scene for college students is also much different in New Zealand.

“Boys are not afraid of asking a woman out [in the United States],” Reynolds said. “[In New Zealand], most people actually meet in social settings, after they’ve had a few drinks.”

Reynolds said it was a huge shock to realize how many people are off the dating market.

“I’ve never seen so many married young people in my life,” Reynolds said. “I remember having a married couple in my class at a university when I was 22 and thinking that was so strange.” Reynolds said most people in New Zealand get married closer to 30.

James Kontoh, a junior in business from Ghana, Africa, said one of the biggest differences between the United States and Ghana are the roles of men and women.

When dating in Ghana, Kontoh said it is more serious because of the open community where everyone knows everyone. After a woman accepts a proposal, the male goes through a process of bringing gifts to her parents, gaining their approval. If the parents of both the boy and the girl agree, a salary is set by the girl’s parents. This dowry is what the man is required to pay her parents in order to marry their daughter.

“I just paid off my dowry early this year,” Kontoh said. “I’ve been married for over two years.”

Even after marriage, Kontoh said men and women hold different roles in the Unites States than he is used to in Ghana.

“Here women have a lot of control. They handle the bills a lot here … It’s like a team where everybody specializes in something and some of the things we specialize in are different. [In Ghana] it’s a taboo for guys to be in the kitchen a lot.”

Kontoh said he likes the US because, “The husbands give their wives a chance to speak a little bit more, couples who have been married for a while still open the door for the ladies. I like the way women are given more say here, and women can do a little bit more.”

Kontoh said he is grateful for his opportunity to be in the United States, but said it is important for native students to keep things in perspective.

“You have international students here paying $4,000-$5,000 for tuition and some of them do not have the money and are not allowed to work in the United States and work through school,” Kontoh said.

Learning to notice the little things can enhance a student’s academic education by finding opportunities to get to know students from different countries and gain a different perspective on life.

-etippets@cc.usu.edu