I was brough up in a small town, government aided school where education was not very expensive. Getting into a management school was my first big ticket expense. While I had options to do master’s degree from US universities, I did not have the means to fund them comfortably. Education loans were well penetrated for education in India, and I decided to chose India vs. US. No regret in hindsight as I see Trump make people dance to his tunes
I was used to 8 hours of sleep, something I couldn’t compromise. I had to go all in on one spike that could help me land jobs or decide my next course of action after B-School. Most students get into different clubs to showcase fragmentation management, almost doing night shifts there. Somehow sacrifice on sleep was a non-negotiable for me (I wish I stuck to it even at work now)
I had the wonderful opportunity to go on a student exchange program during third year engineering. I did not even have a passport. With all the complications around my single name, different locations for permanent address, parents staying in Mumbai for work and me staying in a hostel, I had 3 different police verification, CID verification and a long list of all potential formalities one could have, barely getting my passport in time
The flights, stay and local transport were funded for 3 weeks in Switzerland. With Yashraj movies showing Switzerland almost like heaven, I was thrilled that this country would be my first venture out of India. I did spend about INR 20-30k in 2011 for a 3-day Swiss pass to travel on weekends which made me even more wishful, aspiring to have longer travel like my friends on other programs in Germany who ended up travelling for about 2 months on DAAD programs. 3 weeks of paid stay near Lake Geneva felt like we were God’s favorite children
Management school gave me a second opportunity to do a trimester outside India. DAAD scholarship came to my rescue this time. It was difficult for me at that point to mentally justify another INR 3 lac loan in addition to Rs 15 lac program fees
I chose a university that was not strict on attendance beyond the 1-month German language course, which is very important if you want to maximize travel. Some of the other trade-offs I pursued
- Clubs: Not being in a club or taking up positions of responsibility. This was a pre-requisite to be a part of exchange program
- University: Not choosing a higher ranked university like Booth Chicago/ London School of Economics. From course perspective, Indian schools are good enough. You don’t miss much of learning, but CV points might be higher with a reputed name
Choosing a university with multiple slots can help share and save on accommodation costs
We took courses with different names, but same content which we had covered earlier so that passing was not difficult. We also took 2 additional courses as buffer in case we ended up failing in one of them. I barely passed in one subject and was thankful there was some room with the options
- Scholarship: Choosing a school based on scholarship alone. Only Cologne University offered pre-approved scholarship without applying and waiting for a decision
- Country: Choosing Germany as the base. Although Germany is not very scenic compared to neighbours, Cologne was the best transport hub one could have. Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark were all hours away, making it possible to cover by day trips and saving accommodation costs
- Costs: Keeping them low by being conscious of the number of monuments we enter, meals we have outside, flights we take. In addition, you get student discounts which makes outflow less of a burden
We didn’t go country hopping just for the count. Beyond a point, all European cities start feeling the same with a church, river and train station. We prioritized landscapes that might take longer to each, but made a lasting memory
If you have the means, I highly recommend an exchange programme even without scholarship, since you never get that chance in your life again. It was 3 months of stress-free travel, camping at other fellow student’s place from another university or in hostels otherwise, walking tirelessly for hours, shopping at supermarkets and living the local life. We were never flustered by a day’s delay, something unimaginable in today’s corporate life. Never in your corporate life do you get a 3 month vacation to do something similar- so don’t think twice and grab any opportunity that can get you travelling!
We covered 20+ countries where Schengen visa and Eurail could take us without additional costs. I still remember singing “These are the best days of my life” on the stage during the ferry ride from Stockholm to Helsinki, something that captured the essence of 3 unforgettable months of our lives