Help send Bobby to study and work in India!

Robert Streit Start Date: Jan 16, 2016 - End Date: May 14, 2016
  • Hyderabad, Telangana, India

My Travel Story

by: Robert Streit Start Date: Jan 16, 2016 - End Date: May 14, 2016
Hey I'm Bobby, and I am an undergrad biomedical engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin. I'm that stud in the picture up top there, where I am standing in front of the Charminar, a majestic edifice in the heart of Hyderabad, India. But alas, that picture is merely a crude Photoshop that I created in Microsoft paint. Right now I actually am most likely studying, hunched over my laptop writing code in some dusty, dimly lit room, or killing droves of families of mice to further our insight into Alzheimer’s disease (it really is all in the name of science, or something like that I guess).

But that can all change! Yes, this summer I have been accepted to the ten week Embedded Systems and Industry Experience in India study abroad program that my university offers in partnership with Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. This is a wonderful opportunity. I can't wait to be in India learning about and experiencing a culture so different from the one I am used to.

The plan is that in India a class of 16 University of Texas students and 16 Indian Institute of Technology students will be taught the EE319k Embedded Systems course in a bottom up approach where we will learn how embedded systems can be used to tackle electrical engineering problems. This course will also be taught by none other than Dr. Ramesh Yerraballi, a beloved professor of the University of Texas.

The portion of the program though that I am most excited about is the internship. The class will be put into groups of four, two UT students and two ITT students in each group, and those groups will be assigned to work on projects given by companies of the Hyderabad area. Hyderabad has been at the forefront of India's technological surge over the past two decades and present companies include leading global firms such as Microsoft, Google and Qualcomm. The real selling point of this program is that I will be working across the world with other rising engineers from a place so unlike my own. I am sure I will learn invaluable skills from working in another country, and gain unique insight from being alongside and working with my peers from India. It will be very interesting to see what solutions a team of four can create when the two halves are from two different hemispheres.

I have never been outside of America. I absolutely love ethnic restaurants, but that is the extent of my experience around any culture foreign to my own. Spending ten weeks in India will undoubtedly help me grow by giving new perspectives I can use later on to solve engineering problems, and educating me about how the rest of the world works. The entire reason why I wanted become a biomedical engineer was so that I could create technologies that help and better all human creatures within the world. But how can I save the world without understanding it? Without knowing the problems people face, their worries, and their fears? What makes them laugh, makes them cry, and makes them tick? Being dropped into other areas and countries is the best way I can expand my understanding and knowledge of the world and its people, and giving me more useful insight I can use to solve problems and help others as an engineer. That is what my India Study Abroad Experience can do for me.

Thank you for reading and donating. And as always, Hook em' Horns!

Sincerely,
Robert Streit
  • Hyderabad, Telangana, India

More Travel Information