Courtesy : Quora
Before I answer this question, I would like you to know that I am not from one of the premier Institutes in India . What I say henceforth is largely from a view point of an average Indian pursuing his/her graduate studies in the United States. I will warn you that this is going to be a subjective analysis and more like I am venting out my frustration against fellow Indian students. I know I am likely to draw a lot of flak for this and may fetch comments like I should check out some of the top schools, but yeah well, I am in one of the top CS programs and things are no different from a 2nd tier school. You can only imagine the shock I felt.
The American way of life.
Folks here are largely individualistic. And I applaud them for being so. I might have seen only a niche group of Americans here, but I can safely conclude that they are polite, humble and most important of all, have this extreme passion for a godforsaken field that we, status loving, name dropping folks, are largely alien to. I know of a American teammate who is crazy about collecting motocross statistics and he is pretty serious about it . The passion is so infectious, it makes me go weak on my knees, to the point of being mistaken as someone experiencing a hot flush. No kidding. There is just no match to the passion these guys have.
Point to be noted: They are one of the few groups that go on a vacation during Spring Break, mostly because they are disciplined with their work and manage their time well.
.
Occasionally, I do run into some whack-jobs who are anti-abortion or anti-gay, but that's a minuscule number and doesn't represent the whole. Americans in general are a private lot, love sports and take a great deal of pride in who they are and what they do.They could be running your local grocery store and they are mighty proud about it. Unlike us who look down upon anyone not a Computer Science Engineer or a Doctor, they are less pretentious and more open to failures. A Stanford graduate never talks about his pedigree because he knows what it is to be subtle and he knows that it is the idea that matters more than where the person is from. I appreciate this quality a lot and I only, only wish we, as a nation, embraced it.
We all grew up in a place where there is so much noise about all things personal : grades, salary, property details to the precision of the last decimal point. That way, it is a breather here because almost all conversations with the non-Indian graduate students revolve mostly around their various hobbies, their interests, ideas and some dry humor. No one asks you whether you secured an internship or a job . They will never ask you your grades and will never question you if you are seen talking to someone from the opposite sex. Privacy, civility and respect is almost embedded into their culture as is lack of personal space and lack of sense of individuality in ours. I seldom hear them say "Oh well, when I was at Stanford, I got job offers from X , Y and Z!
The Indian way of American life:
The culture shock I experienced was from the Indian Community : There will be a certain 'Indian Student Association' in your graduate school. My two cents on this one. Run like Usain Bolt from them. Run as fast as you can. Their sole reason for existence is to display their 'accomplishments' in the pretext of on-boarding freaked out freshers like us. I could hear imaginary trumpets blaring when I got introduced to a couple of them. This is where your brainwashing begins and your starry eyed dream of an international experience begins to fade with the song-dance gala welcome party and samosas. And god forbid you are from the meek (elegant, I would say) southern part of India, you will probably receive 'light-hearted' racist comments about your 'Madrasi' idlis and sambhars. These are the same folks who extend their sincere support when one Mr.Khan gets questioned by the TSA and cry foul about how racism is rampant in the western world. These guys cannot differentiate Chennai from Bangalore from Hyderabad and even Orissa. Goodness gracious. I don't even want to comment on poor East-Indians. Double standards, not new right?
Soon after, you will mail your Indian senior graduates asking them for suggestions on courses to choose, professors to work with, projects to work on, all with the primary intent of landing a plum job with a very well known firm. Things are often exaggerated (like the Indian weddings), you are scared the hell out if you dare go beyond the norm and pick courses that your senior friend brands as 'very difficult' by his standards. He will scare you SO much, that it reverberates all through your semester, your confidence taking a beating with every tiny mistake you make. And worse, you repeat the same cycle, plant this seed into another incoming student's head and there, you have an entire line of Indians not signing up for a course because, oh well, seniors did not take it. Indians here are risk averse, not because they are not capable of taking risks (a foreign graduate study is risk in itself) but because they are surrounded by a peer group that psychologically prevents them from taking risk. I hardly see them trying out something as unpredictable as a start-up or going for that arduous PhD that they dream of.
Herd mentality has its victims. Not new to us, is it?
You were perfectly capable of doing well in that subject till you decided to get that bloated advice from your senior friend. Trust yourself to make the right call here and pick courses that you are passionate about, not because your senior friend tells you that it is 'easy' or 'difficult' or worse, that not signing up for that course will not fetch you a job (This, by far, is the lamest advice I have heard from an Indian senior. Made me cringe)
The other side of this affair, the dangerous one, here goes: There are a certain 'easy' courses in your curriculum. By easy, it means easy grades or a lenient professor. Well, before you know it's easy (takes a month to realize that) your Indian friends and their senior bum-chums would have ragged you on your incompetency for not signing up for an intellectually challenging course like they did. Here I am paying nearly all my life savings in tuition for a subject that everybody makes fun of. How does that feel? It feels bloody miserable that such black and white judgement process exist in a world class university and your peers do not let you enjoy what you are studying. Easy or difficult, it's the learning I enjoy more so than anything. Of course, you could always show the finger and move on, but it does become a little difficult when the peer group views you as an intellectual misfit. They are all out to prove their choices, decisions are far superior to yours. Sounds familiar?
The great Indian hype : If you happen to have worked for the biggies back home, you are a superstar here. Your friends hype your work, when you yourself don't care a penny about it, suddenly everyone thinks you are a smart kid, and nasty comments like 'Well, you are the smart one, you will obviously crack this, it's a joke for you' will be spewed. And if you fail to crack it, the same group immediately writes you off, leaving you wondering if you signed up for this after all. I did not create the hype, I did not publicize my work, but here I am being made fun for failing something I did not even claim I could solve!
Minor annoyance, the Facebook feed of your party-kid Indian friend : There is also this certain Indian group who are one of those misinformed college kids clicking endless pictures and doing endless check-ins at every happening and non-happening place in the city. They are another reason for you to cringe. Having never seen the US or been here once or twice on a family trip , they are this uber excited , hyper active social beings who make us all look like party kids, desperate for attention. There is a flood of photos of your wannabe Indian friend with an American/Ukranian/German/French guy/girl (Who cares! they are all a bunch of good looking white folks anyway!) every 10 minutes on your news feed. Believe me, it makes you immensely popular among your Indian friends, you become the talk of the town (your Indian group). It is pretty much like living in India.
You, if you are one of those pitiable Indian student with a hefty loan and with the sole purpose of learning, with dreams and ambitions beyond a job, inclined to know more about the American way of life, the history, the politics, the culture, the people, will be left wondering if you accidentally landed in India. Worse, they will look at you with contempt if you make the slightest indication that you are not inclined to their way of life, you are different, and you want to be a part of a broader culture that emphasizes on individualism than the collective thinking we have been brought up to accept. If you follow the election primaries/ presidential elections, my suggestion is to keep it a secret and pretend you enjoy Bollywood songs when you are with your group. Helps to bond and make them feel home.
Your friends are nosy. They want to know who you hang out with, your grades, who you stay with, if things are okay with your roommates, the white 'chick' you find hot, whether you managed to get an internship, if not, some unsolicited advice on how I should be prepared for an unpaid internship, your salary and your plans of securing a job after Master's and more unsolicited advice. The rat race repeats all over again, the very same reason why you left India.
Academics
Life is not as easy-peasy as those Facebook photos depict. It is a lot of work, actually. More like a correction facility for all the tardiness back in our undergraduate classes. You will be forced to wake up early, forced to sleep late, forced to think for every assignment, forced to feel miserable about your performance in term exams and forced to shut up about your grades. You will be forced to become more disciplined in life. This is why I wrote in the beginning that I am not from one of the premier Indian institutes, because those guys are probably used to such load. If you are an average student like me, you will wonder where you are going wrong, in spite of being one of the top students in your class back home. It was rote learning back there, it is not that way here. Not a day passed in the first couple of months where I did not wish that I had studied in the US since the very beginning.
But, of course, there is an easy way out of this, something you must know by now, given how things work in India. You can always get your answers on the internet or by discussing them with your Indian friends beyond the permitted levels and break all the academic honesty rules. Rules are meant to be broken isn't it? That's how things are back home! And with the self-righteous attitude we have, we collectively look down on anyone caught for academic dishonesty, but pretty much do it ourselves. 'Hey let's work on this assignment' is the norm, even if it clearly states that collaboration is not allowed. Any guesses why the Indians score well and way above average? Here it is.
I know I did drift from the main topic. Now back to your actual answer.You will do great if you are sincere with your work, if you have a desire to learn, if you are curious and if you don't let the above affect you much. As another post here highlights, professors are approachable (Indian professors alike), resources are aplenty and school will keep you busy enough to forget a lot of peer pressure I mentioned above.You can select courses from technical/non-technical departments alike, while you are majoring in say Computer Vision. It need not be always coherent, because a lot of us are here to explore.You are not expected to become a subject matter expert and specialize in something. It is recommended, not mandatory. I know of a professor who majored in Music in his undergraduate studies and went on to get his PhD in Computer Science. That is the flexibility this system offers. Awesome isn't it?
If you are in one of the research schools, I recommend you to get a hang of the kind of research that goes on and think about how you could contribute your tiny little idea to the academia, no matter how nebulous it is. That said, there is nothing wrong in looking for a job (I too want to make my living) but do not let it become a priority, because you are here for graduate studies and jobs/internships are more or less a by-product of what you do here. Education is something very close to my heart and it does bother me personally when the whole purpose is diluted with unnecessary add-ons like what I mentioned above.
Before I answer this question, I would like you to know that I am not from one of the premier Institutes in India . What I say henceforth is largely from a view point of an average Indian pursuing his/her graduate studies in the United States. I will warn you that this is going to be a subjective analysis and more like I am venting out my frustration against fellow Indian students. I know I am likely to draw a lot of flak for this and may fetch comments like I should check out some of the top schools, but yeah well, I am in one of the top CS programs and things are no different from a 2nd tier school. You can only imagine the shock I felt.
The American way of life.
Folks here are largely individualistic. And I applaud them for being so. I might have seen only a niche group of Americans here, but I can safely conclude that they are polite, humble and most important of all, have this extreme passion for a godforsaken field that we, status loving, name dropping folks, are largely alien to. I know of a American teammate who is crazy about collecting motocross statistics and he is pretty serious about it . The passion is so infectious, it makes me go weak on my knees, to the point of being mistaken as someone experiencing a hot flush. No kidding. There is just no match to the passion these guys have.
Point to be noted: They are one of the few groups that go on a vacation during Spring Break, mostly because they are disciplined with their work and manage their time well.
.
Occasionally, I do run into some whack-jobs who are anti-abortion or anti-gay, but that's a minuscule number and doesn't represent the whole. Americans in general are a private lot, love sports and take a great deal of pride in who they are and what they do.They could be running your local grocery store and they are mighty proud about it. Unlike us who look down upon anyone not a Computer Science Engineer or a Doctor, they are less pretentious and more open to failures. A Stanford graduate never talks about his pedigree because he knows what it is to be subtle and he knows that it is the idea that matters more than where the person is from. I appreciate this quality a lot and I only, only wish we, as a nation, embraced it.
We all grew up in a place where there is so much noise about all things personal : grades, salary, property details to the precision of the last decimal point. That way, it is a breather here because almost all conversations with the non-Indian graduate students revolve mostly around their various hobbies, their interests, ideas and some dry humor. No one asks you whether you secured an internship or a job . They will never ask you your grades and will never question you if you are seen talking to someone from the opposite sex. Privacy, civility and respect is almost embedded into their culture as is lack of personal space and lack of sense of individuality in ours. I seldom hear them say "Oh well, when I was at Stanford, I got job offers from X , Y and Z!
The Indian way of American life:
The culture shock I experienced was from the Indian Community : There will be a certain 'Indian Student Association' in your graduate school. My two cents on this one. Run like Usain Bolt from them. Run as fast as you can. Their sole reason for existence is to display their 'accomplishments' in the pretext of on-boarding freaked out freshers like us. I could hear imaginary trumpets blaring when I got introduced to a couple of them. This is where your brainwashing begins and your starry eyed dream of an international experience begins to fade with the song-dance gala welcome party and samosas. And god forbid you are from the meek (elegant, I would say) southern part of India, you will probably receive 'light-hearted' racist comments about your 'Madrasi' idlis and sambhars. These are the same folks who extend their sincere support when one Mr.Khan gets questioned by the TSA and cry foul about how racism is rampant in the western world. These guys cannot differentiate Chennai from Bangalore from Hyderabad and even Orissa. Goodness gracious. I don't even want to comment on poor East-Indians. Double standards, not new right?
Soon after, you will mail your Indian senior graduates asking them for suggestions on courses to choose, professors to work with, projects to work on, all with the primary intent of landing a plum job with a very well known firm. Things are often exaggerated (like the Indian weddings), you are scared the hell out if you dare go beyond the norm and pick courses that your senior friend brands as 'very difficult' by his standards. He will scare you SO much, that it reverberates all through your semester, your confidence taking a beating with every tiny mistake you make. And worse, you repeat the same cycle, plant this seed into another incoming student's head and there, you have an entire line of Indians not signing up for a course because, oh well, seniors did not take it. Indians here are risk averse, not because they are not capable of taking risks (a foreign graduate study is risk in itself) but because they are surrounded by a peer group that psychologically prevents them from taking risk. I hardly see them trying out something as unpredictable as a start-up or going for that arduous PhD that they dream of.
Herd mentality has its victims. Not new to us, is it?
You were perfectly capable of doing well in that subject till you decided to get that bloated advice from your senior friend. Trust yourself to make the right call here and pick courses that you are passionate about, not because your senior friend tells you that it is 'easy' or 'difficult' or worse, that not signing up for that course will not fetch you a job (This, by far, is the lamest advice I have heard from an Indian senior. Made me cringe)
The other side of this affair, the dangerous one, here goes: There are a certain 'easy' courses in your curriculum. By easy, it means easy grades or a lenient professor. Well, before you know it's easy (takes a month to realize that) your Indian friends and their senior bum-chums would have ragged you on your incompetency for not signing up for an intellectually challenging course like they did. Here I am paying nearly all my life savings in tuition for a subject that everybody makes fun of. How does that feel? It feels bloody miserable that such black and white judgement process exist in a world class university and your peers do not let you enjoy what you are studying. Easy or difficult, it's the learning I enjoy more so than anything. Of course, you could always show the finger and move on, but it does become a little difficult when the peer group views you as an intellectual misfit. They are all out to prove their choices, decisions are far superior to yours. Sounds familiar?
The great Indian hype : If you happen to have worked for the biggies back home, you are a superstar here. Your friends hype your work, when you yourself don't care a penny about it, suddenly everyone thinks you are a smart kid, and nasty comments like 'Well, you are the smart one, you will obviously crack this, it's a joke for you' will be spewed. And if you fail to crack it, the same group immediately writes you off, leaving you wondering if you signed up for this after all. I did not create the hype, I did not publicize my work, but here I am being made fun for failing something I did not even claim I could solve!
Minor annoyance, the Facebook feed of your party-kid Indian friend : There is also this certain Indian group who are one of those misinformed college kids clicking endless pictures and doing endless check-ins at every happening and non-happening place in the city. They are another reason for you to cringe. Having never seen the US or been here once or twice on a family trip , they are this uber excited , hyper active social beings who make us all look like party kids, desperate for attention. There is a flood of photos of your wannabe Indian friend with an American/Ukranian/German/French guy/girl (Who cares! they are all a bunch of good looking white folks anyway!) every 10 minutes on your news feed. Believe me, it makes you immensely popular among your Indian friends, you become the talk of the town (your Indian group). It is pretty much like living in India.
You, if you are one of those pitiable Indian student with a hefty loan and with the sole purpose of learning, with dreams and ambitions beyond a job, inclined to know more about the American way of life, the history, the politics, the culture, the people, will be left wondering if you accidentally landed in India. Worse, they will look at you with contempt if you make the slightest indication that you are not inclined to their way of life, you are different, and you want to be a part of a broader culture that emphasizes on individualism than the collective thinking we have been brought up to accept. If you follow the election primaries/ presidential elections, my suggestion is to keep it a secret and pretend you enjoy Bollywood songs when you are with your group. Helps to bond and make them feel home.
Your friends are nosy. They want to know who you hang out with, your grades, who you stay with, if things are okay with your roommates, the white 'chick' you find hot, whether you managed to get an internship, if not, some unsolicited advice on how I should be prepared for an unpaid internship, your salary and your plans of securing a job after Master's and more unsolicited advice. The rat race repeats all over again, the very same reason why you left India.
Academics
Life is not as easy-peasy as those Facebook photos depict. It is a lot of work, actually. More like a correction facility for all the tardiness back in our undergraduate classes. You will be forced to wake up early, forced to sleep late, forced to think for every assignment, forced to feel miserable about your performance in term exams and forced to shut up about your grades. You will be forced to become more disciplined in life. This is why I wrote in the beginning that I am not from one of the premier Indian institutes, because those guys are probably used to such load. If you are an average student like me, you will wonder where you are going wrong, in spite of being one of the top students in your class back home. It was rote learning back there, it is not that way here. Not a day passed in the first couple of months where I did not wish that I had studied in the US since the very beginning.
But, of course, there is an easy way out of this, something you must know by now, given how things work in India. You can always get your answers on the internet or by discussing them with your Indian friends beyond the permitted levels and break all the academic honesty rules. Rules are meant to be broken isn't it? That's how things are back home! And with the self-righteous attitude we have, we collectively look down on anyone caught for academic dishonesty, but pretty much do it ourselves. 'Hey let's work on this assignment' is the norm, even if it clearly states that collaboration is not allowed. Any guesses why the Indians score well and way above average? Here it is.
I know I did drift from the main topic. Now back to your actual answer.You will do great if you are sincere with your work, if you have a desire to learn, if you are curious and if you don't let the above affect you much. As another post here highlights, professors are approachable (Indian professors alike), resources are aplenty and school will keep you busy enough to forget a lot of peer pressure I mentioned above.You can select courses from technical/non-technical departments alike, while you are majoring in say Computer Vision. It need not be always coherent, because a lot of us are here to explore.You are not expected to become a subject matter expert and specialize in something. It is recommended, not mandatory. I know of a professor who majored in Music in his undergraduate studies and went on to get his PhD in Computer Science. That is the flexibility this system offers. Awesome isn't it?
If you are in one of the research schools, I recommend you to get a hang of the kind of research that goes on and think about how you could contribute your tiny little idea to the academia, no matter how nebulous it is. That said, there is nothing wrong in looking for a job (I too want to make my living) but do not let it become a priority, because you are here for graduate studies and jobs/internships are more or less a by-product of what you do here. Education is something very close to my heart and it does bother me personally when the whole purpose is diluted with unnecessary add-ons like what I mentioned above.
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