Bike Path

This bike path is about ten minutes from my hotel. Its just a trail joining two streets, and isn't large enough to be considered a park, but it has some of my favorite scenery so far.

IISER Pune

Two days ago my study abroad group went to a lecture and tour about the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune. In general, I am interested in education policy. I thought that the talk was worth preserving, at least for myself, so I've summarized it below.

Modern Indian education was initiated by the British in the early 19th century. This was largely practical education that was centered around having Indians be helpful to the British project in India. Accordingly, it focused mostly on English, law, and administration.

There were some attempts by Indians to revise this rather narrow system in the years that followed, but the second large change in educational infrastructure occured after Indian independence in 1947. Since many countries didn't believe that India would become a stable and independent country, there was no outside investment in Indian education. As a result, the educational system of the early 1950s was state-initiated.

Today, education in India is still largely run by the state. There are many colleges, each with a small student body of approximately 2000-3000 pupils. The curriculum taught by colleges is also nationally standardized. A common criticism of this system is that the adherence to a rigidly fixed curriculum causes teachers to "teach to the test," leading to a lack of quality in education.

Currently, India is also largely a service economy, without a significant contribution to knowledge production. In other words, Indian colleges focus more on teaching specific skills than on preparing students for research and/or academia. The colleges also require students to know what they generally want to study before matriculating. If they decide to change their minds about their field of interest after a year or two, it is often too late.

IISER is experimenting with an alternate plan in education. Its curriculum attempts to introduce modern science and research, expose the research process from day 1, and to provide interdisciplinary education options. It offers a five-year M.A. program (undergraduate college in India is typically three years). The first two years are spent taking classes from multiple disciplines. The third and fourth years are spent specializing in the student's major area of interest. The fifth year is reserved largely for research. Only the top 1% of students in Indian schools (as determined by standardized tests) are considered for this university.

There are five total institutions like this in India. So far there have been no graduates, and the program is admittedly experimental. It will be interesting to see how this project in education turns out in the coming years, and I found it neat to see firsthand how people here are attempting to revise the educational system.

In class, our professor also mentioned that this institution's policy is an interest contrast to U.S. educational policy. For eight of the last ten years, funding for scientific research (most popularly stem cell research, for example) has been cut by the government, which is unprecedented in U.S. political history. On a personal level, it also seemed unusual to me that the speaker we had was concerned with the production of knowledge versus services, as I can rarely recall this issue coming into discussions of U.S. educational policy.

Katraj Snake Park, Part 2- Signage

India is generally known for its ludicrous signs, but even by Indian standards, I found the signs at the Snake Park amusing.


My favorite item of note is that the price for foreigners is two and a half times the price for "regular" adults.

I also think it's funny that they chose to call it a Snake Park, versus a Snake Zoo. The name reminds me of dog parks in the U.S., so whenever I hear it I have mental images of people walking their snakes publicly on leashes.


There are also detailed lists of things that you can't do posted, which include sitting inside the bushes, in case you feel compelled to do that.

Katraj Snake Park, Part 1

The Lonely Planet Guide to India told me that this zoo has an impressive array of snakes, but only a "mediocre assortment of wildlife." I actually found this to be the opposite when I visited. I much preferred the wildlife exhibits to the "Snake Park" section, although part of the snake park seemed to be closed off when I visited.

Although there were fewer animals than most zoos seem to have, and nearly half of them were different varieties of deer, the quality of the exhibits that they did have was impressive. The view of the animals from the path was great, and their exhibits were much larger than the exhibits for any zoo animals that I've seen in the U.S.

The scenery of the park itself was also gorgeous, and I've included several pictures of it here.

Two public parks down, eight to go.

Sambhaji Park

There are ten major public parks listed in my poorly-translated Pune traveler's guide, and I hope to visit all of them. This one is the first that I've gotten to walk through. The park itself is small, about the length of a city block or two, on one side of the street.

Sadly, the pictures really don't do it justice. Part of what makes it impressive is the unusually large size of all the plants, which I wasn't able to translate well into the small frame of a photograph.

Also, I couldn't figure out why there is an army tank as the central figure in one of the plant arrangements, but I was amused by it.

Arrival

I'd taken enough classes on India that I felt pretty sure that I would know what to expect before I arrived here. The biggest thing that I worried about was being restless during twenty hours of riding an airplane. I get irritated and restless on days when I can't go outside because it's raining, so not being able to move more than twenty feet from one chair sounded like torture.

Due to a delay in a connecting flight, I was moved to a more direct, fifteen-hour flight at the last minute. The reduction of five hours from my travel time was probably helpful. I also underestimated my ability to sleep on moving vehicles. I slept for thirteen of the fifteen hours, and somehow miraculously wasn't jetlagged when I arrived in Mumbai.

I spent the night in Mumbai, then took a four-hour bus ride to Pune. This wasn't as boring as it sounds because there were other students to talk to and the view was beautiful. Unfortunately, as it was from a moving bus, I wasn't able to get any pictures.

The only inconvenience in my arrival was that my luggage got lost. I wasn't too bothered by this experience because I had packed the minimum of items, expecting to buy more once I reached Pune. Everything that I purchased (two kurtas, an adaptor, soap, and shampoo) were things that I would have needed to buy at some point during the trip.

Classes have been good, and I've been enjoying exploring the city, which is largely why it took me a week to get around to writing about arriving here.

Introduction

I am going to be in Pune, Maharashtra, India, from September 22 to December 12, on a study abroad program held by the University of Chicago. During that time, if I wrote to everyone with whom I regularly correspond or talk, I would be composing about a dozen long letters every week. Also, I would want to write to my more distant friends and acquaintances occasionally as well. I'm not sure exactly how many more people that would be. A lot, is the short answer. And I will be too busy going to class, wandering around bazaars, and trying to talk to people in broken Hindi to write to everyone individually.

It seems more practical to find some mass method of communicating with everyone. Thus, as a practical measure, I'm just going to share whatever experiences seem worth relating here. There is a button directly below, at the bottom of the page, which allows you to subscribe by email.

Please remember that, if you are someone I write to regularly (or probably if you're not, for that matter) I would still love to hear from you about your own experiences while I'm away!