<p>I posted this in "Study Abroad" a couple of days ago, but not hits to date -- so am reposting here to reach a wider audience.</p>
<p>D is doing this program, January - May 2009. Anyone have any experience with this particular program, or any other IHP programs? She/we are very excited; we are also very nervous! She will be in India, China, & South Africa. Part of the time will involve homestays.</p>
<p>CBBBlinker:</p>
<p>Send me a PM with your e-mail. I'm having database error problems with these forums that make it very frustrating for me to reply to messages or even see threads like yours. It takes four or five tries to post a reply. I haven't been able to check the study abroad section.</p>
<p>My daughter did the IHP Cities of the 21st Century program which visited two of the same places as your program, Beijing and Bangalore. We called it her "Amazing Race Study Abroad". Her itinerary was:</p>
<p>New York City (where they did incredible stuff & got an idea the program was no vacation)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Beijing, China
Shanghai, China
Bangalore, India</p>
<p>She did homestays everywhere except Shanghai where they lived in a guest dorm at a university.</p>
<p>Her classes in Beijing were based out of the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine where your daughter's classes will be. The homestay was in a new midrise apartment building across the street, although others stayed in old traditional hutongs. What an incredible experience. My daughter spoke no Chinese and her family spoke no English except when the brother came to visit on weekends. They worked it out and became great friends. My daughter brought back the recipe for her favorite dish -- an eggplant dish that her new mom cooked -- all done just by taking digital pictures of the ingredients and cooking steps!</p>
<p>The Chinese medical students were great, taking the Americans all over the city. Strangest experience was going with them to a country music bar in Beijing. Talk about a convoluted culture shock.</p>
<p>In Bangalore, the classes were at a Christian monastery in near downtown. I can send you maps of both areas. Homestay was with a family in the suburbs, so that was an "autorickshaw" commute. India was just insane. My daughter said that it just felt like utter chaos for the first week and then she started to pick up on clues of order -- in the traffic, etc.</p>
<p>The IHP programs are incredible. It will be a life changing experience. For daughter and parents. Nothing like getting an e-mail saying she's going parasailing off a mountain in the foothills of the Andes tomorrow and all you can do is e-mail back saying, "Uhhh....OK. Have fun. E-mail us when you can and let us know you're still alive!"</p>
<p>Hard to even know where to start. First, the workload and intensity of the travel is probably the most demanding thing my daughter has ever done. They stay busy and it's just plain challenging to move from country to country like that. Between the schoolwork and the homestays, it's "on" 24/7. Daughter was looking forward to going to back to Swarthmore so she could take it easy! Busy in a good way. She absolutely loved the experience.</p>
<p>They do incredible field trips and so forth. Let's see. In Buenos Aires, they visited a shanty-town -- neighorhoods that don't even exist, studied the official and unofficial garbage collection and recycling systems, etc. In China, they toured a Nike plant, got a personal tour of the major arts district by one of the artists who went to jail for organizing a massive outdoor art exhibition during the Cultural Revolution, spent a weekend in a "New Socialist Countryside" farm village. In Shanghai, they got a tour of the Pudhong commercial district by the head of the Shanghai planning commission. In Bangalore, they spent days sleeping in a barn on a silkworm farm and studying the impact of a major new highway development project.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, the schoolwork part is quite rigorous. My daughter said the approach was like she is used to at Swarthmore: small seminars, lots of discussion, independent research, student presentations. She actually got better grades at Swarthmore, in part because she did the mental calculations that with only pass/fail transfering to her transcript, she was not going to pass up opportunities in each city in order to make an Herculean effort writing papers and so forth. Overall, she didn't think the professors were as skilled in teaching as the standard she is used to and that they probably took their mandate for "rigorous academics" a bit too much to heart considering the big picture circumstances, but it really didn't matter. The program isn't about the course reading, but the experts you meet, the immersion in each country, and -- most uniquely -- the opportunity compare and contrast three continents.</p>
<p>One of the pieces of advice she got from a previous IHPer was to set her priorities and make time to just explore the cities. The other good piece of advice: bring comfortable socks! Oh, I can tell you that the hardest thing will be getting her backpack down to the weight limit.</p>
<p>I'll quit for now with a couple of links to travel blogs from past trips:</p>
<p>A travelog from an IHP Fellow (past alum and trip coordinator) just start here and go to "next" page to proceed. </p>
<p>magical</a> urbanism</p>
<p>Great photosets of Bangalore and Beijing. These will give you an idea of what some of the IHP experiences are like:
IHP</a> in Bangalore - a set on Flickr
Factory</a> 798 - a set on Flickr
IHP</a> Beijing - a set on Flickr</p>
<p>This is an incredible well written fun journal from an IHPer a couple of years ago. This link takes you to the index page so you can jump to the Beijing and Bangalore articles. She really captures it.</p>
<p>Last</a> day home ... - Simsbury, United States Travel Blog</p>
<p>Fire away with questions. If I don't get back to your right away, I'm trying! I thought CC had the forum fixed last night with the maintenance, but alas, still broken this morning.</p>