A Weekend at Georgetown University

Perched on a hilltop lies the beautiful Georgetown University. Boasting of a moderate climate throughout the year, it has very artistic buildings that carry a history of its own. And, the river Potomac that runs by the university makes it look more like an ideal residence place than merely a university.

The scene under the key bridge at sunset is something I thought only existed in movies and artists' imagination. Walking on the boardwalk overlooking the mesmerizing sunset view transports one in a world where there is nothing to worry, no traffic rules to follow, no 10 to 5 work to go and no desire to cater to materialistic vanity.
The location of Georgetown University is ideal for innovation, introspection and inquisition. Sandeep Gautam, my friend at Georgetown University tells me this location was chosen to encourage prospective future leaders to think peacefully and prepare to assume leadership positions in the future, nothing short of presidential ones. No wonder, Georgetown produced the very talented, articulate and humanitarian US President Bill Clinton. And, many more presidents and global leaders are budding under the serenic umbrella of Georgetown University.

Why Poverty still exists

I love Mahatma Gandhi's statement, "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."

And, this in a way hints at why poverty still exists in the world. Year after year, G8 and other rich industrial nations meet to discuss on this issue, make commitments to give away at least 0.1% of their GDP to developing nations. And yet, poverty seems never to abate. Some nations such as India, China and Brazil have made some progress and pulled out people from under the poverty line of $1 per day. Yet, more slip under the line in other nations, visibly more so in the nations of Africa. There are many nations which have had negative average growth rate in the last 50 years.

Millions are pledged and given away in aid by philantrophists too. Gates Foundation and another prominent philantrophist Bono of U2 have donated millions to these needy nations and people. So, where does the answer lie? Will the cows in Europe continue to be subsidized at 2 dollars daily while more than half of the world's population lives on less than 2 dollars daily? What do you call fairness?

Where does the solution lie? Is foreign aid ever going to help these nations come out free from this entangled web of poverty? I have my doubts. Instead, a new hope has been instilled in me after I came to know about the works of Muhamud Yunus of Bangladesh who started the idea of microfinancing through Grameen Bank. His organization, Grameen Bank today has several other sister organizations. And, it has made a significant difference in tens of thousands of Bangladeshi lives. He likes to call his style of business as 'social business'. This new term, 'Social Business' was alien to me before I came across his ideas, but not after that. I have started to believe the key to poverty eradication lies in social business. Foreign dependence in current form has not been able to alleviate poverty on a meaningul scale, let alone eradicate altogether.

I suggest you google the term 'Social Business' to know more about this term.

Wikipedia defines it as, "A social business is one which aims to be financially self-sufficient, if not profitable, in its pursuit of a social, ethical or environmental goal."

Impact of Recession on Students

What has the current recession done to students?

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  Left them jobless over the summer, which translates to less pocket money to spend
  
  
  
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  Increased the burden on students and their families.
  
  
  
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  More work during the college session to make up for summer income foregone
  
  
  
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  Increased competition for on-campus jobs
  
  
  
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  More work and increased stress will lead to lower performance
  
  
  
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  Deprived them of internship positions and among the few internship positions that have not been cancelled in light of recession, they have been transformed to unpaid ones
  
  
  
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  Affected their college choices. Many of them can not attend their dream colleges and opt for a less expensive one because their parents can not afford due to reduced financial aid or loss of job
  
  
  

The recession has hit the students really hard. Statistics are available to tell the story that this summer, teen unemployment was the highest in several decades. Hope the situation gets better.

Monster Diversity Leadership Program- New York 2009

I thought I finally got to attend a programme of considerable worth after a long time. In my first year of college, I hardly participated in any of the club activities. And the Monster.com, the organizer of this grand programme, to be simulatenously organized in other regions of the United States assured me and other participants that among 20,000 or so applications, only 2700 were selected. Big deal.
When I arrived at St. John's University in New York, the atmosphere was great, full of energy, positive vibes and participants were buzzing with excitement. I sublimed in the energized atmosphere and engaged in conversations. I met many good people, five from Nepal too and several from India. I was especially pleased to meet one of the facilitators, Ethan, coincidentally the first person I met at the event. Graduating from NYU, he was very excited and a person who loved so many things in life. Instead of working a 10-5 job like most of the humans in this world and even more so in New York, he worked with a zoo and other organizations. In the future, he wanted to become an actor.
To cut the long story short, I felt it was worth because I met new people and made connections, which might be useful in the future. But, I was disappointed with the way Monster DLP organizers treated us. It's not that they were rude or disrespectful. I felt they treated us like children, making us shout by throwing away little gifts (with sponsors' names) everytime some group made a loud noise. Personally, I am not a person who likes to engage in these kind of activities. No wonder, I never went to a pub/disco/bar the second time. The slogans they had come up with was very catchy. One of them was "Rock the DLP, Rock, Rock the DLP, Rock the DLP...Stop". (I hope I got it right.) And you had to virtually shout out your lungs while chanting this slogan. There were numerous ones like these. And everytime, any MC saw you not shouting out loud, you became the star of the show for the moment since you would be honorfully brought to the stage to become the victim and shake your ass while the excited crowd roars in approval.
Besides this childish treatment, which I thought was inappropriate, the sponsors joined in too to make the DLP program look very silly. Sponsors (apparently company recruiters) danced at Monster DLP like crazy everytime they came on stage. Many of the recruiters were in their early 20's and many of them were even student interns. And they were the 'so-called recruiters'. Can you believe that they were ostensibly to hire us and to advise us on our future plans. Many participants complained that every time participants asked any question to them, they replied, "I suggest, you log on to our website and check the information."
Scholarships were given out but noone knew on what basis they were awarded. And, sadly they were very few in number, much less than proclaimed by Monster, the organizer. Apparently, few of the sponsors who had promised bigger committments did not show up. The major attraction of the event, three laptops by HP were also cancelled since HP did not show up.
Monster DLP had good intent while organizing this event but I thought the event at New York was a joke, an indelible dent in their credibilty. And the participants who had been to other venues in the past years concured with the above statement.
I hope somehow Monster.com organizers pay heed to this message and take steps to make their programs in the future more suited to the college students' needs and not high school ones. Who likes to burn one's lung out chanting slogans?

Adventurous Summer

It's been very long since I wrote anything. So much needs to be said. I have been on quite an adventurous trip this summer. Unlike my first nine months in the United States, I went out-of-state for the first time. For the first time, I got to see high rise buildings, greenery, trees on both sides of the road and people walking in the streets. And, this street was not in downtown.

When I was studying in Texas, my friends asked me if I found the Texas accent any strange. And I was in no position to answer that because that was the only accent I had been exposed to. I mean, I used to watch English movies but I never paid any detail to the accent because all of my attention was focused on understanding what the characters are saying or probably reading the subtitles if such privileges were available. But now that I moved out of Texas all the way to the NorthEast to states like Maryland, New York and New Hampshire, I can see how Texas accent is very different than the accent people use here in the NorthEast.

Obviously, more needs to be said and written. And that will come in installments. First of all, I have decided to have one grand blog instead of having separate ones for different genres, one for my high school, one for political issues in Nepal, one for my life in college, one for photography and so on. This will be the information highway and combine all blogs together. So, it will be advised that readers choose the genre and sort through this soon-to-be digital matrix.