#fieldexperience

Learning at IISM is always insightful, as well as fun, whether it’s in the classroom 🏫 or on the ground! 🏃‍♀️

And our students couldn’t agree more when they got an opportunity to assist in the District Level Athletic Meet 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ organized by the Mumbai Suburban District Athletic Association last week. 👍

First, visiting the SAI ground in the city was a great experience for the students. 🤩 Moreover, assisting there as a Technical Official gave them an overall understanding of how a sports event takes place. 🧐

IISM students applied their valuable classroom knowledge of Sports Management concepts in several areas of the event. 🧠 From explaining the rules of the games 🗣️ to managing the athletic team 🤝, they excelled in their given roles. 👏

For the past month, I had the privilege of visiting companies in LA from the fashion industry. My Professor was kind enough to allow some fashion marketing students at Woodbury University to visit the companies and her contacts. We got to visit PR firms to Fashion magazines to fashion brands and in between. It was an intellectual experience and I learned a lot from the companies we got to visit. My favorite place I got to go to was Guess Inc. There were so many areas of the headquarters. Got to visit the design area, the dye room, photo studio, social and e-commerce offices and their own factory store.

I enjoyed visiting Guess Inc and getting to see the work environment they provide which was spacious and open to communication. Another company I was grateful to visit was Levi’s Premium showroom also in downtown LA. There I met with Woodbury alumni Rachael Kampas who was the junior sales accountant. She talked about her daily routine of her job and the struggles and rewards that come with it and then she showed us some of the newer trends on Levis jeans and the vintage line that Levi's has created. 

If there is one thing I gained from my field experience is that there are so many places and opportunities to work in the fashion industry and that it is important to find a job where you have great skills at but are passionate about and have the drive to do the best job you can. I will never forget all the people and places I got to see and for my professor to get us in to see these amazing companies.

By: Rebekah Meahl, Cohort 18 Master of Science in Conflict Management

 I’m not sure how regularly I’ll send these, but I figured after one week, an update was due! I think I’m finally just about over jet lag, and being 9.5 hours ahead of EST is my new normal.

I don’t always have wifi where I’m staying, and I definitely don’t have wifi at the school where I’m currently teaching - it is on the outskirts of Bangalore, and the locals all call it "very rural" (even though there are high-rise apartment buildings nearby and within view of the school). I’m actually supposed to be moving from the current guest apartment I've been at this week to a different guest accommodation that is much closer to my school. They say the wifi there is better. ;-) Part of the reason I’m moving is to get me closer to the outskirt schools because of the long commute. The traffic in Bangalore is *incredible* (super congested roadways due to the IT boom in the past five years and SO MUCH HONKING. I’ve been to 24 other countries and have never heard this much honking. "Cultural honking,” as I’m now calling it, is AMAZING) and I spend 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon on two different school buses to get to my school. Supposedly my new “home” will only have a 15 minute drive to school! Hooray!

It has been a great first week, and I have been treated like an honored guest! Many of my colleagues at the ACTS Group of Institutions/CIFAL Bangalore main office and at the school I’m teaching for September have all been fascinated by my paper/project to go along with my internship (in part on sustainable education in India) and they have all been more than happy to give me their own rundowns on all of the positive and negative things about Indian education! I’ll be teaching English/global perspectives to 5th, 6th, and 7th graders at this school for September, and will move to another school in October. On school holidays (due to national holidays and/or religious festivals of which there will be a few during my two months here), the ACTS main office staff have “claimed” me and they want to pick my brain on dispute resolution trainings they can provide for employees, as well as other basic skills I have, like intercultural communication, the basics of grant writing, etc. I’m so glad to help make a difference and pass on knowledge while I’m here!

I am including three photos. One photo is my view out of the school bus windshield each day, for some perspective. Another one is of me and some of my new colleagues who teach at my school. They are all dressed up for the annual Indian “Teacher’s Day” Celebration (which I spoke about in my Instagram post). These ladies have been wonderful in taking me under their wings and showing me the ropes of their school. Another photo is of one of the cultural performances at the Teacher’s Day Celebration. The students perform as a way of celebrating the teachers who pour so much into their lives. The students included me in their thank you speeches, even though I've only been at their school for a few days, and will only spend a month there before moving to another school. They said "Rebekah ma'am is our fountain of knowledge". They gifted me a juice glass.  

Thoughts included in my Insta post: I am humbled. I am in India for two months to teach English/global perspectives and research sustainable education in an Indian context and write a paper and help train some teachers in dispute resolution skills. I don't feel like a fountain of knowledge. I feel like an over-educated American who is just flitting in and out for a while. Yet I have been treated like an honored guest and I am determined to make a difference in the short time I am here because I have a skill set that I can use, and I can share my knowledge.