US culture for an Indian Student

Is your heart pounding for a glimpse of the Golden Bridge? How can one ever resist dreaming of themselves at Harvard or Stanford or MIT!  Uprooting your roots from one culture to the other is not always peaches and roses. But when your bag is filled with dreams and a heart to survive the US culture welcomes you with an open heart. The cultural tidal wave might hit you a bit harder initially, but we always adapt, improve and overcome. Here we indulge you into a detailed look at the life of an Indian student in America. If you see a bright future ahead, life has zillion ways to tackle your obstacles ahead.

Education and Lifestyle of the USA

Lifestyle

One has to accept the fact that lifestyle and culture in The US have stark differences compared to India. It is always better to live in reality rather than having a utopian dream. When Indians are hailed for our unity in diversity, American citizens often celebrate individualistic lifestyles.

The US is dynamic and vibrant, where cultures, values, and beliefs merge. Known to be the land of immigrants, the lifestyle and culture here are thus more inclusive. American lifestyle is thus weaved with values and rich belief systems of almost all nooks and corners of the world.

Therefore, some weave up their own sterling webs while some tangled up in it, but never stop fighting to untangle themselves.

Education

For an Indian student with piles of dreams and a will to work the academic culture here is your gate to success. It is common to fall with few cultural shocks but once you pick yourselves up, your pavement is forever.

Your student life is promised to be bound with cross-cultural experiences and a novelty of explorations. ‘According to IEE’s annual “open door” report, it is the University of Southern California that has the complete package of highest international student population’.

This itself is a crystal proof for the quality of education that US culture provides you. The way the entire education system works in the US is something that should be highlighted.

Here you have your platform to be the change, to be the voice and to be yourself. Akin to the inclusivity of lifestyle education system also offers you the inclusivity to be the real you with exclusive cultures and values. 

How to blend in?

While your roads might not always be of roses and lilies, but not of thorns too. It’s easy for you to blend in when your journey is about to start fresh. 

Always be an observer: It’s extremely important to be a keen observer of things around. From minor etiquettes to major discussions, always keep your eyes and ears open. Once you are familiar with the culture and practices around, you yourselves blend into the culture.

Adapt but be yourself: American culture is all about individuals. It is trivial to blend in, but never lose the aspect of uniqueness in you. Often when we blend into a culture we tend to lose ourselves completely in the flow. But along with embracing the hybridity keep on hold your sterling personality.

Explore and experience novelty: Initially, the upsurge of cultural turn might drown you up. But give yourselves time and explore the culture. An easy-breezy tip to blend into it is to keep in touch with the local cultures around you. Along with merging in you imbibe a bunch of rich, funky, spotty, valuable cultures and practices. Experience yourself a change by opting out the local attires keeping your comfort zones to embrace the nuances of change. 

Buckle up with few terms:  A random chit chat or greetings are common in the US culture, so be equipped with a few idioms or key phrases, so that you can start and end a conversation anywhere, anytime.  No one can be a perfectionist when it comes to novel accents and language, it is not mandatory to have an American accent to blend in to. Rather, what matters is your manner and attitude towards it. With these random chit chats build up a common sense of belonging amongst others. 

These are few tips to blend into the US culture and lifestyle, but on top of it what matters is yourself. Once you learn to embrace your fallacies and work towards it, it’s easy for you to blend in.

Why is the US a good option for Indians?

The ocean of opportunities and streams to express oneself is the gleaming factor that attracts most of the Indian students to the US. Indian education system is sterling in its own ways. But for those students who dream to swim around the ocean of novelty, experiences, and opportunities in relation to their passion, the US serves you right.

The flexibility to choose your streams is what makes it in the bag. To follow your passion and your career is not everyone’s piece of cake, but when you have it, you grab it. The US academic culture gives you a space for you to be the change and most importantly to self -gauge your achievements.

Along with academic knowledge American education inculcates watering your passion with a number of slots of extracurricular activities and clubs. This is hardly available for an Indian student and makes the US second to none for them.

Students life score in the USA

The USA has innumerable colleges and universities where students love life. From accommodations to values of learning students enjoy the best part of their life in the USA.  It has a number of cultural landmarks and gorgeous monuments that each heart pounds to visit. The students along with enjoying their academic life are going to live there. The years are going to be vibrant with lots of new people, ideas, ways of life, cuisines, values, and knowledge so be ready to experience different kettle of fish always.

Education quality

The obvious reason for the overflow of international students to the USA is its outstanding quality of education. With qualified professionals, always ready to help you, invaluable academic surroundings, an abundance of streams to choose, a platform for personal growth and passion, the US academic system always stands on the top deck when it comes to the quality of education.

The support and opportunities a research scholar gets in the USA, often leads them to ambitious startups and careers all over the world. University campuses in the US are yet another platform for socialization and path breaking discussions.

They owe a life of their own and one can easily blend into it. Most importantly self – reliance and independence is what education in America gifts you with. The education system thus guarantees you a well-heeled career and personality ahead in almost every arena.

Problems faced by Indian Students in the USA and how to overcome them

The roads are not always straight. They diverge, twists, turns and often breaks. But a toddler always learns to walk by tackling the obstacles and accepting the failures. America has big dreams for you to build on but none can pass with flying colors.

Indian students often face a lot of cultural problems in the USA initially, they often have second thoughts on catching their dreams because of this. But it is always worth giving it a shot because one can easily overcome these obstacles if you have a determined self.

Be Precise and accurate

Communication: communication is often a major issue that most of the Indian students face in the USA. It becomes a bit hard for them to engulf American expressions, idioms, and key phrases.

Americans are often precise and on point while conversing, unlike Indians. Indian phrases with long punctuation also puzzles them. This creates a huge gap in a student’s daily life.

They lack confidence and often restrain themselves from discussions and academic interactions. But this is just an initial hurdle. Once you start to accept your fallacies and embrace your faults the world is your oyster.

To tackle this problem, you just have to equip yourselves with few local words and phrases., once you engage in certain discussions, gradually you become familiar with the accents and language.

Never back out yourself from interactions just because of language, because it is something that one can imbibe with time.

Be on time – Punctuality

American lifestyle ticks with the clock. They are extremely punctual and systematic when it comes to work and academics. One of the common problems that Indian students face in America is the habit of being late.

We Indians equipped in multi-tasking lack a bit of punctuality and we take with us this habit of being late all the way to the US, causing problems. The only way to overcome this is to prepare yourself to be in the habit of time because once done you enjoy your life to the best.

Being a spotty

American culture is known for its ‘lift’, as they call it. The small chit chat, random conversation on streets, elevators, everywhere, anytime.

The Indian students lack this quality of being spotty and sharing such fewer casual conversation because they have never been in the habit of it.

This often affects them when they are in the public or amongst a crowd. Always be equipped with phrases and words for greetings or wishes and flaunt yourself when in use. You just have to observe and be prepared for such circumstances.

The independent lifestyle

Often Indian students find it hard to lead an independent lifestyle, where you cook, clean, work, live all alone. Away from their loved ones, initially, they might struggle with homesickness and being therefore oneself. But with time students adopt such a lifestyle and adept in being a self- made individual altogether.

These include a few challenges that an Indian student might have to face in the US.

But every problem comes with a solution that makes you a better and best individual. With the opportunities and gleaming dreams that education in the US offers you, these hurdles are nothing but stepping stones.

Before signing up for any streams or courses always ensure that you are well equipped with the American education system. The city is vast so as your options, suit yourself with the best and unique option in every corner. Never forget to conduct a detailed study of the course, college and stream that you are interested in. No matter where you decide to plant yourself you will eventually find an exciting array of opportunities along with experiences, with diverse groups of people all around the US. 

Something that adds to your life while learning is the working culture in the US along with your studies. You work to build an independent lifestyle there which we Indians hardly do. Although the USA offers students a large number of scholarship programs sometimes it fails to meet the expenses over there. Therefore, the American culture is known for its earn while studying scheme, where one earns money and a bag full of experiences too. The more connections you build the more you find the base of belongingness.

iGraduate believes in the right to information. The decision is yours to be taken. Talk to us if you have any questions or concerns.

Make your student life in the US an experiential one. Dream for it and work for it.