I’ve been back home for a little over a week now, and I am still reeling over everything I have seen and learned in India. Though the trip home was rocky to say the least (our flight home was delayed and then canceled!), it did nothing to make me forget how incredible my time in India has been.
During our time living at Woodstock School in the Himalayas, we completed two courses – an anthropology course about Mussoorie, India, and a wilderness first responder course. From this, we gained much knowledge about the history and religions of India, and a WFR certification.
In addition to our academic accomplishments, we learned through experience about landmarks such as the Surkanda Devi temple, the Ganges River, and the Tibetan Buddhist Temple, which is my cover photo on this blog post. The cities we were able to explore included Delhi, Agra, Dehradun, and, of course, Mussoorie. In our downtime after class, we went on countless hikes and trips into town to shop on the main strip called Mall Road. Some other adventures we embarked on during the program were a 3-day trek in the wilderness, a trip to the holy city of Rishikesh, and a visit to the Taj Mahal. While we were in India, two very noteable events occurred – India held their 2024 election and experienced a world record temperature of 126 degrees Fahrenheit. These events definitely raised my interest in India’s political and climate-related current events.
I feel like my experience abroad helped shape me into a more knowledgeable, culturally competent, and inspired individual. From our classes and conversations with locals, I learned so much about religions and ways of life that are common to India but different from what I have grown up seeing in America. I believe this will benefit me in the future by enhancing my abilities to connect with individuals from all walks of life.
In a more general sense, I have also become more physically healthy – living in a dorm that requires climbing 237 steps to reach will do that to you. I’m grateful for the increased fitness, as I believe that will inspire me to stay active during the coming school year. I also developed some extremely necessary teamwork skills by working together with my peers during our “mass casualty” scenarios, and also simply by coexisting in a house with 26 other people! Finally, after learning about the healthcare system in India and gaining some emergency medicine skills, I am now more sure than ever that I want to pursue a career in the field of medicine. It is for this and many other reasons that I am so thankful for the opportunity to explore and learn about India, and it is certainly an experience I will never forget.
P.S. – thanks to our flight home being delayed, we got to see this incredible view of the Western Himalayas from the plane:
