<p>Ah, been there, done that! ;)</p>
<p>Congrats on the successful return (d. and bags) home!</p>
<p>Doubt that Microsoft or Infosys run two hours late in Bangalore. They would, if their workers had to fight traffic. That's why they build their housing around the workplaces.</p>
<p>If she ever wants to return to India, boy, do I have a deal for you....</p>
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Doubt that Microsoft or Infosys run two hours late in Bangalore. They would, if their workers had to fight traffic. That's why they build their housing around the workplaces.
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<p>Yeah. Daughter's case study in India was the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor -- a massive highway project connecting the two cities with plans for self-contained industrical districts along the route. They slept on the concrete floor of a silk worm farm in the middle of nowhere along the route.</p>
<p>Quite a contrast to several days in the "New Socialist Countryside" outside of Beijing, where "farming" communities are being equipped with fancy guest houses and tourist amenities so that visitors to the Olympics can see "the Chinese countryside". Kind of like the Chinese equivalent of Vermont, I guess!</p>
<p>Often, the number of homeless people reflects the growing wealth of a city, soaring housing prices, and the need for a surplus labor force. Years ago, I used to see hundreds of families living in unlaid sewer pipes on the outskirts of the Gujarati city of Surat. As the pipes were laid (by these same people), their families would move to the next set of pipes. </p>
<p>Mysore used to be among my favorite cities in all of India, a place of great culture and arts under the Woodeyar princes. Bangalore to me is unrecognizable.</p>
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Bangalore to me is unrecognizable..
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<p>On the other hand, Bangalore was the outlier among the rapidly growing cities my daughter visited. Buenos Aires, Beijing, Shanghai, and Singapore are all growing UP. From her descriptions (and photos), Bangalore is not seeing skyscraper growth....something that must be cultural, although it may be because Bangalore is a small town of only 5 million.</p>
<p>I love this photo (and caption) from Bangalore:</p>
<p>It's very different style of development than, say Beijing, which is city of high-rise apartment buildings or Shanghai, which my daughter says reminds her of Las Vegas.</p>
<p>As far as homeless, I think the most moving days of my daughter's trip were two days visiting shanty towns in Buenos Aires....huge neighborhoods that appear as empty spaces on all the maps (they don't exist).</p>
<p>Homelessness was in the category of topics that were "not talked about" in China.</p>
<p>There is that:</p>
<p>But there are also massive high-rise complexes, built around the offices:</p>
<p>Have to search for some photos:</p>
<p>Meanwhile, we are building houses for $2,200. Costs have gone up from $1,200 two years ago as a result of the shortage of building materials brought about by the post-tsunami building boon. We've lost our free supply of sand, but the new coal-fired electrical plant has offered us all the free fly ash we can use, if we can get ourselves a fly-ash compactor (anyone got $45k to spare? It's only one year of fancy college education, and we can build 2,000 homes cheap if we can get a hold of one of these machines. Inquiries welcome!)</p>
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But there are also massive high-rise complexes, built around the offices.
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<p>Right. There are self-contained live/work/play IT campus developments, but nothing on the scale of the high-rise apartments in China. It's actually an issue that my daughter's group discussed in their meetings with urban planners in each of the cities. In order to support the burgeoning urban populations, cities must grow up or else they simply devour the surrounding areas as they pave the entire country. For example, Indian planners envision an endless commercial corridor stretching from Bangalore to Mysore even while Banglore remains very inefficiently developed (two story structures as far as the eye can see).</p>
<p>I'm not particularly sold on the Chinese model, either -- high rise public housing.</p>
<p>In any case, the two countries appear to be fascinating contrasts. China has the infrastructure thing down to a science (thanks to a 10% annual economic growth rate), but has looming political issues with the government in a race against time on several fronts. India hasn't got a handle on infrastructure, but has a much more stable, sustainable political system.</p>
<p>BTW, I think my daughter might very well be interested in your housing project. I'll keep it in my hip pocket for the right time. She's really not receptive to questions from the parental units about specific possibilities emerging from her trip. I think she's still in the decompression mode and all the advice I've read is let them take the lead after returning from that kind of travel experience. She did have interaction with ex-pats in each country so I know that she is not oblivious to the possibilities. I think she's still assimilating and digesting.</p>
<p>My mother sent my boys the most marvelous set of books. I'm racing thorugh them before they are taken off to distant lands.</p>
<p>One of my favorites is a book called Oracle Bones written by Peter Hessler, the young Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker. He writes well and he has a keen eye for blending empirical observation with temporal interpretations of Chinese history. Hessler may be the English counterpart to Gao Xingjian. This book reminded me of Gao Xingjian's One Man's Bible</p>
<p>You and your D may enjoy it, idad. Hessler turns a cold eye on the many Bejing housing projects--and on life as an expatriate in China. (He spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer before working his way into freelance journalism).</p>
<p>interesteddad:</p>
<p>I read on the IHP website that you have to petition for the program? Was that true of your daughter? Unfortunately, it doesn't mention, which colleges actually endorse the program. What college does your daughter attend?</p>
<p>qwilde:</p>
<p>The IHP programs have a normal application procedure, just like any study abroad program. Application form, essay, professor recommendations, phone interview, etc. My sense is that it is reasonably competitive. They have to pay attention to whether or not a student understands the rigor of the program and can handle it. That is offset a bit by the expense of the program. Depending on how your college handles study abroad and financial aid, it can be one of the more expensive programs around, which tends to hold down the number of applicants. If a student is in good standing with a 3.0 GPA and comes across as someone who can handle the program, I think he or she would be accepted.</p>
<p>When I was looking into the program initially, I did some searches. It's an approved program for most elite colleges, although sometimes buried on the lists due to the fact that it doesn't fit a neat category such as "programs in Chile".</p>
<p>My daughter's group had 25 students. She was the only one from Swarthmore, but Swarthmore almost always sends one or two students per year on the various IHP programs. My daughter has been e-mailing with a sophmore who is applying for next fall.</p>
<p>Other colleges represented this past semester were Vassar, Wellesley, Barnard, UPenn, Harvard, Williams (they had two on this trip and have been regularly sending students), Bard, Berkeley, BU, Hunter, Trinity (TX), and Seattle Pacific University.</p>
<p>The longer list in the brochure of schools sending students in past years includes all of the Ivy League schools except Dartmouth and Cornell. Every LAC ever mentioned on College Confidential. Virtually all of the top-25 universities. And couple dozen top publics.</p>
<p>cheers:</p>
<p>Thanks for the Hessler recommendation. I passed it along to daughter and I'll look for it in the library.</p>
<p>Idad - thanks for a fascinating account of your daughter's study/travels.</p>
<p>That sounds lovely. I must convince my parents to go to one of those scenic touristy spots (beaches, etc.) when we go to India. They're natives so we never seem to go anywhere for sightseeing or relaxation like traditional tourists. Of course, there is charm in seeing the hidden-away or everyday hotspots of the natives, as well.</p>
<p>qwilde:</p>
<p>I missed the meaning of your question about "petitioning". That would only be necessary if your college had not already recognized the program. I don't think that would be a common occurrence based on the list of schools that have sent students. If it were, I don't think it would be difficult program to get college approval for. Swarthmore, for example, loves the IHP programs. Doing homestays in Buenos Aires, Beijing, Shaghai, and India while studying urban, political, and social issues impacting each city is not a tough sell in terms of educational value.</p>
<p>Starting next year, the IHP programs are going to be offered under the umbrella of the SIT programs based in Vermont. SIT programs are also on many college's approved lists.</p>
<p>Thank you, for the information interesteddad. You have sparked my interest and curiosity. I have lived all around the world and would like to continue my acculturation while attending University. I want to spend a semester in Japan, but the accounts of your daughter's globetrotting expeditions have compelled me to also consider a program at IHP. I'm slightly worried about the expense though, as I will be putting myself through college. Is it extremely expensive? I perused over the Boston University's cost sheets and although it seemed expensive it is equivalent, if not cheaper, than the regular tuition that I will have to pay at private universities.</p>
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I must convince my parents to go to one of those scenic touristy spots (beaches, etc.) when we go to India.
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<p>The bigger group of students from my daughter's group went to Goa for the weekend. My daughter had heard Mini's evaluation of Goa and was looking for something a little more off the beaten path. So she and five friends went to Varkala and stayed in bamboo huts instead of a cheap tourist hotel in crowded Goa. Comparing notes with the other students, it sounds like she got the better end of that deal. (Thanks Mini!).</p>
<p>They had great advice -- both from 25 kids armed with guidebooks and from local contacts in each country. For vacation in Argentina, they went to Mendoza in the foothills of the Andes where somebody had tracked down the perfect youth hostel for a college kids' vacation -- winery tours, horseback riding, paragliding in the daytime, bar-b-q beef and beer at night.</p>
<p>They were doing the standard touristy stuff (Great Wall, etc.) on their regular weekends. In each country, a group of students was assigned to work with the local country coordinators and present the must see touristy stuff. Sometimes, a small group would take off on a Saturdya alone. Other times, they would charter a bus for a larger group. Other site visits (Nike factory, shanty towns, landfills, architects, government offices, etc.) during the week. For example, they got a presentation and tour of the Pudong business district from a Shanghai government planning official. Or a tour of Beijing's new financial district and the soon to open Ritz Carleton hotel on another day. Those kinds of site visits were four for five days a week.</p>
<p>Sometimes they were organized thematically. Half the students spent several days with the unofficial "Carteneros" recyling effort in Buenos Aires, while the other half toured the official landfills and waste treatment facilities. Then, they compared notes in joint presentations to the entire group.</p>
<p>gwilde:</p>
<p>My daughter said that a signficant number of students on her trip were internationals or Americans who had lived abroad. For example, one American student had grown up in Tokyo. Another was the daughter of a career US diplomat. The two Harvard students were both internationals: one from Bulgaria, one from Cyprus.</p>
<p>Cost:</p>
<p>The program fee is essentially the same as the sticker price (tuition, room, board, and fees) for a semester at a hoity-toit college -- $22,000. On top of that is "walkin' around money" (my daughter said she spent about $2,000 for incidentals -- entertainment, going out, local transportation, lunches, vacations, sightseeing, shopping, etc.) The only signficant items not covered by the program are local US airfare to and from NYC, the cost of immunizations and visa, and the cost of vacations/extra travel in each country (she had a week's vacation in Argentina).</p>
<p>In real terms, it really depends on the deal you have with your home college. At Swarthmore, we just continued exactly the same payments to the school (including financial aid). Swarthmore wrote all of the checks to the program and sent my daughter a check for $500 to defray some of the "walkin' around" expense. So it was pretty much a wash from our end. But, if you are attending a school that costs half of what Swarthmore costs, then obviously the equation could change dramatically.</p>
<p>Yes, my step-father was American DOD.</p>
<p>I'm sure it is quite easy to spend "walkin' around money" while studying abroad. Yes, $22,000 would be approximately the same as the tuition at some of the schools I have applied to- BU, NYU, and GWU. I have had most of the requisite immunizations quite a few times and I am British citizen, so I can study anywhere in Europe and I believe, though I could be wrong, the commonwealth states without a visa. I only hope that whatever college I attend is as generous as Swathmore. Thanks, again for your input.</p>
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I only hope that whatever college I attend is as generous as Swathmore.
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<p>There are pluses and minuses to the way Swarthmore handles study abroad payments. It's fantastic for students with hefty financial aid. The aid continues and there are no considerations about the cost of the study abroad program.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you are a full-fare customer looking at a relatively inexpensive study abroad program, you get killed...as in paying Swarthmore $22k for a $15k study abroad program. Basically, Swarthmore was quite upfront about their rationale when they switched to this fee structure -- they are socking it to wealthier students in order to subsidize study abroad for needier students. </p>
<p>For the most part, the really top study abroad programs are priced at the going rate for a semester in the United States, so it works out.</p>
<p>Rice U has students pay for study abroad directly; those with F.A. get checks cut from Rice directly to the students -so "full-fare" parents can pay just the cost of the SA program, which is often cheaper than college. And, YEA!!!! DD arrived home safely from Peru and Chile, after having walked the Inca Trail and visited Machu Picchu with a friend, visited numerous cities, deserts etc., rode various buses for trips lasting up to 24-hours :eek:, and successfully navigated a 5-month visit that included 3 foreign countries, and direct enrollment in foreign university. (She made "A's" in those classes, too! :) ) A stolen wallet was the only major problem. Sigh. It's great to have her back. She had a problem at first finding the English words for some things, but now she's back to jabbering like a native. ;)</p>
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Rice U has students pay for study abroad directly; those with F.A. get checks cut from Rice directly to the students -so "full-fare" parents can pay just the cost of the SA program, which is often cheaper than college.
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<p>That's fairly typical (and Rice's administrative fee is lower than most.)</p>
<p>That system is the most advantageous for full-fare customers with plenty of discretionary cash to pay deposits, etc. However, it may be the least attractive for lower-income need based aid students and may tend to reduce the participation in study abroad programs by this group.</p>
<p>Like everything else in college finances, it really all boils down to individual circumstances. </p>
<p>The payment approach does tend to influence program choices. For example, Swarthmore's system encourages looking at pricier travel abroad options -- just like you would be more likely to order the lobster instead of salisbury steak from a fixed price restaurant menu. My daughter looked at one lower cost program that was considerably less expensive than a semester at her college. We kicked around the idea of her simply taking a semester off to do the program without transfering any credits.</p>
<p>I've heard of people doing that. DD took her 5-months in Chile through IES, which was substantially cheaper than full-pay at Rice - but far cheaper still would have been a direct enrollment program for foreign exchange students through the Chilean university itself. If she decides to go back, or to another country, she will probably do that. I don't begrudge the extra money for the program though; the extra money for IES goes to pay 6 or 7 fulltime employees who organize trips, internships, help find lodgings, liason with the participating universities, etc.etc. Savy kids may not need this "support" and can find ways to get the same education much cheaper.</p>