From Papua New Guinea to India: The Journey of an International Student

I had completed my M.Tech in Biological Engineering from IIT Gandhinagar recently and joined the same Institute as a Senior Project Associate in External Communications when I got the chance to meet Julianna Rex for the first time.

A smiling face and a friendly personality, Julianna hails from a village in Milne Bay province of Papua New Guinea. She is the second child, with an elder sister and a younger brother, of a lower middle class family. Her parents are subsistence farmers and fishers by profession.

“We lived in a village and had to go to Alotau (town) for attending school. We had to travel by boat; it took almost two hours to reach and was quite challenging,” she said. “Eventually, my parents sent me to live with my aunt in Morobe province so that I can complete my studies properly.”

After her B. Sc in Applied Physics from Papua New Guinea (PNG) University of Technology, Julianna decided to pursue her Masters’ from India. “My professors told me that it is a really good country in terms of imparting higher education with IITs being the most prestigious institutes.” She joined IIT Gandhinagar in the year 2016 as an M. Sc student in Physics under the MoU signed between the Institute and PNG University of Technology.

As soon as I asked about her first ever experience and impression of Bharat, a broad smile spread across her face and she continued, “India is full of light, life and excitement!” On stepping out of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad the very first time she came to India, she was amazed to see the vendors and shopkeepers selling goods, people enjoying food and having fun late at night. This was quite the opposite in her country where shops get closed and people go home before 7 PM.

Julianna loves the diversity in India. Although she took some time to adapt to various seasons of our country, she enjoys the pleasant and colorful springtime, the warm-to-hot summers, the fresh rains, the cool-to-chill winters and the golden crisp autumns. It is different from her country which mainly experiences a homogeneous weather with rains and mild summers throughout the year.

“The huge variety of food in this country had me shocked beyond belief! We eat only boiled vegetables, rice and fish at our place,” she said. There are different dishes for every festival, occasion and region of India. She had a hard time to adjust to the spicy food items initially but now is of the opinion that they are simply exquisite. She is partial to Upma and Biryani and Gulab-jamun and Jalebi are her favorite sweet dishes.

Papua New Guinea imports milk and dairy products from New Zealand and Australia which is the reason why its people do not get to experience the deliciousness of food items like curd, butter and chocolates to their fullest. The abundant supply of such products along with Lassi, buttermilk and several other sweets in India makes Julianna extremely happy.

Although she had a lot of positive experiences, one of the negative ones was use of Hindi language by the lecturers sometimes while explaining the concepts in great detail. “These are the times I sit lost in class,” she said. She loses track of the subject when her Indian friends suddenly start speaking Hindi during their conversations. But she understands the fact that Hindi is the mother-tongue of a large population in India. “I love my friends and they all love me. They are my family away from home. I never felt that I don’t belong in India. From the time I set foot in this country, I have been encouraged by people around me to do better- personally as well as professionally!” she explained further.

When I asked about what parts of the country she has visited, Julianna said that she has been to quite a few places in the short span of two years. It all started with weddings at friends’ in Meghalaya and Madhya Pradesh which were followed by trips to Rajasthan (IIT Jodhpur), Tamil Nadu (IIT Madras) and Assam (IIT Guwahati) for various cultural and sports festivals. Julianna is drawn towards the serene mountains, tranquil beaches and soothing waterfalls of India and has by now become aware that food-habits, clothes, weather, lifestyles, landscapes, vegetation, languages, people and cultures change after every few kilometers in this country. “I still want to enjoy the snowfall!” she added laughing.

On the sports front, Julianna represents IIT Gandhinagar in women’s 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 4x100m and 4 x 400m relays. She feels that the Indian education system is much more efficient as compared to her country, with the main objective to encourage creative thinking which promotes the students to develop practical solutions for day-to-day technical problems of the society. This is the reason she decided to get enrolled in the M.Tech program in Earth Sciences at IIT Gandhinagar after completing her M.Sc in 2018.

A great fan of women safety in the state of Gujarat, Julianna plans to return to her country with two different Masters’ degrees and support her parents financially. “In future, I would like go for a job or pursue PhD on a scholarship,” she said. She wants to contribute to her younger brother’s education so that he can also have a bright future like her. In a country where majority of people do not study after Bachelors’ and mainly work as farmers, fishers and miners on meager incomes; Julianna is an exceptional example of a female pursuing higher studies abroad with countless employment opportunities after M.Tech.

I am glad that I met Julianna and came to the realization that India is indeed spreading smiles. While challenges are an inevitable part of any cross-cultural experience, Julianna’s journey is an excellent example of how our country does its best to encourage and support the foreign students studying here in every way possible…

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This story has also been published on Medium.