{"id":1857,"date":"2013-03-28T17:10:10","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T11:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcurocks.wordpress.com\/?p=1857"},"modified":"2013-03-28T17:10:10","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T11:40:10","slug":"radical-visitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/28\/radical-visitor\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical Visitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RadicalIndiaGraphic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Karoline Pershell<\/strong> is\u00a0Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Tennessee at Martin. She is spending a semester with us at the University as a\u00a0Fulbright-Nehru Teaching Scholar. After coming across her blog, Radical India<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(its a math joke, see the image on the right) I thought I would request her to do a guest post on this blog, to tell us about her experience at the UoH. She was kind enough to respond positively (Thanks, Karoline!), and here is her post, titled<\/p>\n

Hearty Thanks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Untitled\"<\/a><\/strong>When I applied for the Fulbright-Nehru Teaching Scholar position in the summer\u00a0of 2011, I had never considered where in India I would be placed. With so many\u00a0universities and IIT’s in the country, it was serendipitous that my online searches from\u00a0the other side of the globe showed me the Mathematics Training and Talent Search\u00a0Programme<\/strong><\/a>, with the founding organizer at the University of Hyderabad. A few email\u00a0exchanges later, and I told the US consulate that I would like to go to U of H. I arrived\u00a0on December 28, began classes on January 2, and it has been an exciting semester!<\/p>\n

Based on student comments, I think I have demanded a lot from them on a daily and\u00a0weekly basis, but my students in the Integrated Masters of Science program have\u00a0risen to the challenge! I am impressed by their questions, by their participation, by their\u00a0enthusiasm for the material in class, and excitement for their studies outside of class.<\/p>\n

\"Untitled<\/a>My students have made my time here extremely\u00a0rewarding. Through them I have learned about\u00a0Indian culture, Hinduism, holidays, festivals,\u00a0customs and even visited some of their homes. \u00a0I\u00a0have learned about their career ambitions and\u00a0attempted to help in whatever way I can, by passing\u00a0along opportunities or just encouraging their\u00a0passions.<\/p>\n

I have taken advantage of so many (too many??) things UoH offers, like plays and\u00a0festivals, lectures and conferences, and\u00a0sports! (Yeah…I didn’t know what a wicket\u00a0was when I came here. Silly Americans.) I\u00a0have traveled outside of Hyderabad as\u00a0well, in an attempt to get to know a little\u00a0more about India (Jaipur, Delhi, Agra and\u00a0Kochi), while spreading the love of math.\u00a0(See photos of doing math on an elephant… )<\/p>\n

\"Untitled<\/a>It was strange to find myself amongst a\u00a0group of all Americans at a recent\u00a0conference in Kochi for the Fulbright-Nehru\u00a0scholars, researchers and students who\u00a0are in South and Central Asia. I greatly enjoyed\u00a0hearing about the work that Fulbrighters across the\u00a0subcontinent are pursuing and excited that I am lumped together with such amazing\u00a0people.<\/p>\n

Besides sharing research, I believe many Fulbrighters used this time with other\u00a0Americans to commiserate, to look at someone from your own culture and have the\u00a0person validate that you have had a rough go during the year, as travel always requires\u00a0compromises.<\/p>\n

However, I can\u2019t complain.<\/p>\n

Everything has run so smoothly for me since before I arrived that I assumed other\u00a0Fulbrighters were having similar experiences. I had taken for granted the incredible\u00a0work that Professor Kumaresan (Dean of the School of Mathematics and Statistics\u00a0at the University of Hyderabad) and Prof KPN Murthy (Director of the Center for Integrated\u00a0Studies) have done.<\/p>\n

From my health to my living arrangements,\u00a0from my transportation to my course load,\u00a0Prof Kumaresan has brought me to\u00a0Hyderabad as his guest and given me the\u00a0autonomy to run my course as I deem\u00a0appropriate. Profs Kumaresan and\u00a0Murthy are passionate about the\u00a0students learning to problem solve for\u00a0themselves (as opposed to regurgitate on exams). I think I convinced the mathematics\u00a0chair that I feel the same way, and as such he had enough faith in me to: teach a\u00a0required course for the majors; adjust the grading scale to place emphasis on the\u00a0homework and outlines (things which are necessary to learning the material, but often\u00a0are not given any allotment in the grading scheme); and to require daily writing from the\u00a0students.<\/p>\n

Like Kumaresan, I believe we need to teach the students to think, and that may mean\u00a0stepping back and showing them how to teach themselves. As my semester is winding\u00a0down, I realize how far from the norm my class is, and appreciate the opportunity that\u00a0the Department of Mathematics and the Center for Integrated Studies is giving me to\u00a0share my passion with the students, and expose the students to possibly a different\u00a0teaching style.<\/p>\n

\"Untitled<\/a>Finally, I would like to highly recommend the University of Hyderabad as a location for\u00a0future Fulbright placement. The opportunities at the university for a professor to teach\u00a0or do research are probably similar to other universities throughout India, but the level\u00a0of assistance, respect and freedom in the classroom that is given to professors far\u00a0exceeds that of anything I have heard from other Fulbrighters.<\/p>\n

Being dropped alone in a foreign country can be daunting (see sign of poisonous\u00a0snakes on campus), but the reception I have received in Hyderabad has made me feel\u00a0at home.<\/p>\n

\"Untitled<\/p>\n

Thank you for this opportunity and I hope that I have given back to UoH at least a\u00a0fraction of all that UoH has given me.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

Karoline<\/em><\/p>\n

PS: Please notice that I am a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar:\u00a0the exchange goes both ways! Please consider\u00a0applying for a Fulbright-Nehru position for Indian\u00a0citizens at http:\/\/www.usief.org.in\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karoline Pershell is\u00a0Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Tennessee at Martin. She is spending a semester with us at the University as a\u00a0Fulbright-Nehru Teaching Scholar. After coming across her blog, Radical India\u00a0(its a math joke, see the image on the right) I thought I would request her to do a guest post on this blog, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[105,118,124],"tags":[173,265],"class_list":["post-1857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academics","category-mathematics","category-visitors","tag-fulbright","tag-sabbatical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paG6mN-tX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramramaswamy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}