Post GPP (Switzerland) Trip Reflection

I am sitting in a train running at 300 km per hour (186 miles per hour). While the view outside is nice, the train goes through really long tunnels. So to utilize my tunnel time, here are some of my experiences and learnings from the GPP trip:

The GPP trip got over two days ago. It was a fun-filled experience but exhausting at the same time. We visited 8 universities in period of 8 days, talked to professors, deans, and students at those universities. I found almost all of them to be very receptive of us. During my visits to the universities, while I was interested in learning about different facets of the higher education in Switzerland, France, and Italy, I was particularly interested in knowing how the universities handle the issue of linguistic diversity. Switzerland has four national languages – German, French, Italian, and Romansh. In order to ensure the mobility of students, the universities need to devise some system through which students who do not speak a particular language in a fluent way can still attend any university they want to without any language consideration.

However, what I found was very interesting. Universities, generally, impart instruction in the language that is spoken in the area. For example, in the Zurich region, the language of instruction is German, while in the Ticino region, the language of instruction is Italian in the universities. Some of the course are taught in English as well. In Zurich, one of the professors told me that the Swiss learn multiple languages while they are growing up. For example, someone growing up in the German speaking part learns to speak French and vice versa. Moreover, a lot of people learn English given the global presence of the language. During my stay in Switzerland, I did not find anyone who I could not talk to due to language gap. Almost everyone could understand and speak some level of English. Even while in France, which takes quite a bit of pride in its language, I did not have many issues when I was once lost in a cafeteria. While all the servers could not understand me there, they called in someone who could.

Another aspect that I learned about the Swiss higher education is its stress on quality. At ETH Zurich, I learned that while all the students who want to pursue engineering are given admission, after the first year, many who do not meet the standards are weeded out. This is not to say that students are not provided with resources to help them succeed during the first year. I found this to be in quite contrast with the US engineering education where there is a lot of push to retain students in engineering.

There were many more subtle differences among the education systems in different European countries that I observed and between European countries’ and the US education systems. Moreover, the way people behaved in general varied across different countries in Europe and different parts of Switzerland. Of all the people I met, I loved the most how Italians and Swiss-Italians conducted themselves. But more on that later as I am about to reach Rome soon! :)

What should students pursue, interest or money?

I was attending the 47^th North American Power Symposium during 4-6 October in Charlotte, North Carolina when I had this interesting conversation with a professor from another university. I told the professor that I did my Masters in Electrical Engineering and then I moved to Engineering Education to pursue my PhD. The first reaction which the professor had was in form of a comment in which they told me that it will not be very beneficial for me in terms of the salary which I will earn after graduating from my degree program. I think the assumption which the professor made here was that a graduate with an education degree will earn less than the one with an electrical engineering degree.

There might be some truth in what the professor said (although when I compared the salaries of professors from Engineering Education and Electrical & Computer Engineering departments at Virginia Tech, I did not find much difference between them; but for now, let us go ahead with the assumption that electrical engineering professors earn more than their counterparts in engineering education). It might be difficult for me to compete with electrical engineering graduates in terms of the salary which I will earn after my graduation, but is that all I want from my education? A big fat salary? Or does it have to be more? Is there a bigger purpose for me and for others that leads us to pursue higher education?

If I look at the current narrative about the higher education, it seems like students see it as an investment in terms of time and money and the expectation is that this investment will pay off once they graduate from the university. And this is why a lot of their time and energy is focused on taking classes or engaging in activities that help them secure a high-paying job. This is not to say that all students look at higher education only as a means to get a high-paying job but the number of students who do so is significant. And this is very evident in my own discipline, engineering. In fact, I have myself fallen into the trap of taking classes and engaging in activities that, I thought, would eventually help me get a high-paying job.

I am not against having a desire for a high-paying job. In fact, with the rising costs of higher education, one needs to ensure that one has a well-paying job by the time they graduate so that they can payback their student loans. Issues arise when people start constructing their academic lives around money and jobs; and ignore various avenues of learning which are essential for personal growth and development into a responsible citizen. Moreover, there are other issues with focusing one’s higher education entirely on getting high-paying jobs. The economic landscape is changing rapidly and it is possible that the sectors which are high-paying now will no longer be high-paying a few years later and vice versa. So, if students pursue money while they are in college, there is no guarantee that they will succeed in that pursuit as there might not be many high-paying jobs in their fields few years down the line. Moreover, the charm of money fades away after some time and if one does not find their work interesting and satisfying, one might encounter dissatisfaction with their career and life.

In my opinion, students should follow their interests while they are pursuing higher education and try to get into careers they love. Even if they do not make a lot of money as compared to those who pursued money, they will still love what they do and hence live meaningful lives. And when the going gets tough, doing what they love will keep them going.

Why is "Behave like a Roman while in Rome" attitude problematic?

A couple of weeks ago, I reached my Contemporary Pedagogy class ten minutes before the class start-time and started charting with one of my classmates who had also arrived almost the same time I had. Somehow, the conversation started drifting toward writing and I argued that the professors (at Virginia Tech or any educational institution) should be cognizant of the fact that different cultures have different writing styles. For example Asian cultures follow a circular writing pattern and on the other hand, the dominant writing style in the USA is linear. Hence, when the professors are evaluating a student’s work, especially an international student or even a domestic student from a different cultural setting than their own, they should be at least cognizant, if not considerate, of the student’s culture and look at their writing with the knowledge of student’s cultural background in mind. This is important because in the absence of knowledge of variation in writing style among cultures, the professor may judge student’s writing and hence their level of understanding of the subject matter poorly in case there is a writing style mismatch between the professor and the student.

While I was making this argument, another classmate who belongs to the majority group (white male) jumped in to the conversation and presented a counter argument by saying “Behave like a Roman while in Rome.” I find this attitude of the white guy very non-inclusive and even oppressive. However, this is not to say that he was intentionally trying to be non-inclusive or oppressive while making his comment. It is very much possible that he was unaware of his own privileges and the oppressive nature of his comment. And my aim for writing this blog post is not to point fingers at anyone. It is just to express my own feelings and if that classmate of mine reads this post, it is to educate him and many others who might be unaware of their privileges and the non-inclusive structure of the university and education system.

In order to understand why the comment made by my while male classmate non-inclusive and oppressive in the context of higher education in the US, we will have to go to the history of higher education in the country. The first colleges and universities in the country were set up to educate ministers or to provide education so that the graduates could take up public employment in Church and Civil State. The universities were accessible only to the dominant majority i.e. the white men. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that females and other racial minorities were given access to college education in the country.

In such a case where the universities were only open for the white males and were run by them, it is easy to understand that the education system was structured according to what the white males deemed appropriate. In other words, the university structure was designed in a way which was suitable for the white males. And the same argument can be made for the accepted behavioral styles including writing styles in the university and the academia. The styles of behavior and academic writing which seemed appropriate to white males were adopted and others were deemed inappropriate. While the universities opened for females and other racial minorities almost 150 years ago, I argue that on a structural level, universities have made little changes to accepting what is appropriate and acceptable; and what is not. Thus, the structures which govern the universities are still very “white male-ish” in nature. And hence, the university structures are not very inclusive of minorities.

How does this non-inclusive structure lead to oppression? Universities expect all the students to follow the rules, guidelines and structures and adapt to those. For a minority student who was taught a different set of behavioral patterns and social etiquette in their cultural setting, the guidelines which the universities ask them to follow might be strange and unfamiliar. Thus, what universities are asking them to do is to forgo what behavioral styles they learned as appropriate in their cultural settings and follow the behavioral styles which the universities espouse i.e. the style favored by the dominant group. When students try to adapt to the new set of behavioral patterns as asked of them by the universities, they face disconnect with their own cultural heritage and hence suffer isolation. They are neither able to identify with what they learned at home about appropriate conduct and behavior nor they fully learn the new style of behavior. And a lot of times, this difference in the behavioral styles is seen as an inability to learn. This perpetuates further oppression and segregation of the minority students.

I know it is not easy for any professor to learn about all the cultural styles whether it is related to writing or behavior. However, only by being cognizant of the fact that differences exist one can move a step forward in creating an inclusive learning environment. This is how a professor can start putting in efforts to understand where students are coming from and what values they bring to the classroom. This, instead of asking students to “behave like Romans while in Rome,” will create an inclusive learning environment in universities.