Blog for Nayan

This saturday i took 3 kids shopping to walmart, kids????? by kids i mean new students who have come to USC for their Masters (MS) from India. It reminded me of my MS days as well and the lifestyle back then. This article mainly refers to lifestyle of a typical Indian student who has moved here for his MS.

NOTE: Please don’t take this article personally i am not pointing fingers at anyone, it is just a personal opinion and my observations/experiences.

I would classify three kinds of lifestyles of a typical desi MS student,

• Super Stingy (SS)
• Well Balanced (WB)
• No Worries (NW)

Above categories would easily describe the way of life of a desi, it can be the way of life not only while being in school but also after graduation. I just want to focus my experiences with student lifestyles while still being in school, mainly during MS. Sometimes its just not possible to change your student lifestyle but a lot of people don’t want to change their thinking/lifestyle even though the circumstances make it possible. Lets take a look at each of the above categories,

Super Stingy (SS):

Everything in life is about money, every decision they make in life is about saving money 99% of the times. Saving money is their motto in life. I can understand that USC is an expensive school etc but not everything in life is about money. They would know which place has the cheapest toilet paper or what place serves free food during which time. Being the first in line for free food makes them feel proud and they feel even better if atleast 10 other people take advantage of it because of them.

My Personal Experiences:

USC had or still does have an active yahoogroup where free food events are posted so that people canshow up for free food only and don’t care about the event. So this one dude goes for such event which happens to be for LGBT members (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Trans Gender), unfortunately for him there is press coverage as well and his picture ends up on the front page of Daily Trojan (USC Campus paper), fun times.

Being Indian saving money is a mentality which is in our genes (of course there are exceptions) but this one incident confirmed the hereditary nature of this trait. We (me and my roomies) used to cook almost daily at home, we enjoyed it and cooking turns was fun, so while having a conversation with one of the parents we happened to mention that yes we cook a lot at home and the reply we got back was “So you must be saving a lot of money” grrrrrrrr, come on give us a break. It does help to save money to cook at home but that isn’t the sole reason to do so. Also the manner in which the statement was made was very offending and gave us an idea of the mentality of that person.

There have been a quite a few instances where is have seen SS at work but i shall not go further into it, I am sure you get the idea.

Well Balanced:

Save money and spend it wisely. People in this category like to visit places, would rent a car and go out have a good time while not making a huge dent in savings and things like that. A better paying on campus job certainly helps to maintain a WB lifestyle. Quality of groceries takes priority over cheaper ones and little things like these matter over money.

My Personal Experience:

Our lifestyle, 4 of us bought a car together to roam around and visit few places, the car was an idea which came to us after 9 months since everyone had a good on campus job it was affordable. It wasn’t an expensive car but it did take us around. Groceries would be done from Ralphs and not from Superior or any other place. 

No Worries:

Money is not an issue and spending it is even easier, if you run out of it just ask your folks from India to send some more. Very few people fall in this category but there some chosen ones. Eating food outside all the time, not worrying about trying to find on campus jobs and things like that define them.

My Personal Experience:

I have seen a people like that who tend not to work on campus or for that matter work less so that they can “concentrate on studies”. Eating outside was a routine for few since they didn’t want to deal with hassle of cleaning the dishes afterwards and things like that.

I am sure you can find contradictions to everything i have mentioned above and argue with me on it. There are always circumstances beyond one’s control which forces you to do things as well. I am also not criticizing anyone or maybe just a little for SS but ultimately it is upto that individual to live their life and its their decision not mine.

At Walmart I saw someone with a notebook noting down the prices of items he was interested it, I think it was for comparing the prices at different stores and picking up whatever is cheapest from whichever store. I didn’t know how to react, but it was understandable since being a new student you are still converting $ into INR but if after a year in MS or getting a full time job if that person does the same thing then i would certainly feel sorry for that person.

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