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Suresh Mudragada, Summer 2006

AIP Study Abroad, University Ulsan, South Korea

Global Service and Leadership Project, Thailand, Summer 2007

I left for South Korea a little nervous but extremely excited.  Though I had a bit of a rough start by getting lost in the bus system of Seoul in which a 10 minute bus ride ended up taking over an hour, several people were more than happy to help me find my way.  I took a five and a half hour bus ride from Seoul to Ulsan and it was amazing to see the beauty of the country.  Once I was at the dorms at the University of Ulsan I was completely comfortable.  I started meeting people from other schools around the world (United States, Canada, Japan, and the Ulsan students).  The ASAN International Program (AIP) was great in that it allowed students to experience as much of the Korean culture as possible during one month. 

Classes ranged from Korean economy, politics, business practices, family and religion that were taught through lectures and then pottery, music, costume, and taekwondo were presented in hands ways.  The excursions were amazing, they included a stay at a beautiful Buddhist Temple and going through a program to live as the monks do which was intense but a great experience.  The program took us to Seoul, where half of the country’s population lives and we got to experience a great deal of the big city from palaces, to markets, shows and we even went to unity observation building where you can see North Korea in the distance.  Learning about some of the rough history the nation has had and seeing how much has changed in a few decades was really interesting.  I don’t know how many times I heard the phrase “And 20 years ago this area used to all be rice paddies,” and now it’s massive apartment complexes, shopping areas, and huge factories such as Hyundai Motors and Heavy Industries. 

There were those times I missed my mom’s cooking and Guthrie’s but there was so much new stuff to try.  Now being back home, I crave some of the dishes I had there.  We all had the opportunity to stay with a Korean family for a weekend and I felt very welcomed.  My home stay mother saw that I couldn’t eat the fish properly with my chopsticks so she actually sat beside me and pulled the meat off with her chopsticks and then put it in a spoon and then handed me the spoon!  She called me her adopted son for the weekend.  During our free time we had the opportunity to see other sites in the region and we went to amazing waterfalls, hills/valleys with carvings over 3,000 years old, and we also took trips to other cities and a theme park because travel is really easy due to the efficient public transportation.  What I miss the most are the people.  You do so much with the group and you learn so much from each other.  Saying goodbye wasn’t easy.  The upside is that we’ve got friends all over the globe and the destinations for reunions are far and wide!

Summer 2007
Global Service and Leadership Project, Thailand

       I received a travel grant through Florida International University to take part in their Global Service and Leadership Project (GLSP) in Bangkok, Thailand.  I worked with campus organizations to raise money and school supplies that would go directly to the project sites. We raised over $1,100 and supplies just at Auburn that would go to Banarajawadee, a government site for mentally and physically disabled children, and Children’s Community Fund (CCF), an orphanage.

The project was an amazing experience.  I met awesome people from FIU and from the Thai university we partnered with, Rajabath.  I was at Banarajawadee with half the students.  There are over 600 children at the site dedicated for children with disabilities.  There is a section for the blind, another for the deaf, and we worked with those who were mainly mentally challenged and some that were really physically challenged.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been more inspired.  I saw kids that were handicapped helping kids that were even more disabled.  Those who could walk would take around the kids in wheel chairs to where they needed to go.  The site was so progressive, they even had a small store where some of the kids could work and buy shares and when it profited, they would get a little money, too.

Our time there was mainly spent playing games, singing songs, and trying to teach a few things as well.  Many of the kids lacked the ability to complete some of the program but we improvised as best we could. The kids were so happy to see us each day to see what we would do next.  One day we gave them paper shaped like people so that they could draw and one of the children actually drew me!  Needless to say, I got choked up a few times.  We also helped plant a garden with benches at the site that the children and staff could enjoy.  We had the kids color rocks that we would put in the garden so that they could feel like they helped make it as well.