Forming Global Knowledge through Curricular Work

As a psychology major,  a language requirement had to be fulfilled and I chose to complete the Hindi language series due to this. This is one of the best educational decisions I have made at my time at the UW as I have come to learn so much through such language emersion. This experience has come to be of great valuable to me since I grew up watching Hindi based television shows with my parents and can understand spoken Hindi. Within a month I learned how to read and write using Devnagri, the written script of Hindi. My parents are proud seeing me read in Devnagari as they grew up in India learning Hindi as well.

I have made lasting freiendships through the Hindi series since we have all been taking the class together for the year. These connections are so important to us as we all engage and learn collectively. We further our educational pursuit through learning about a piece of Indian culture, how to speak, read and write in Hindi. This experience has led me to pursue further international travel, to talk to diverse individuals and get further involved with my Indian heritage. I look  forward to my next visit to India. 

Tasks Accomplished:

• Learned the Devnagri alphabet

• Can now read and write Hindi script

• Can speak to the class in Hindi 

• Can understand and communicate with fluent Hindi speakers

• Have created friendships that will last a lifetime

Through being part of such a dynamic classroom environment, I have gained the leadership competency of collaboration. All the students in the class help each other out we have a final project that we have to collaborate on and present to the class. This has helped many of us become claose friends and make lasting friendships. In the begining, we created a Facebook page in order to stay connected and to never let each other fall behind. This classroom wide collaboration in making sure that we are all up to speed has furthered my education.

I have also earned the diversity leadership competency. Many of the individuals in the Hindi  class have such diverse backgrounds and we all get to learn about each other through many classroom activities. Many of the students such as myself have families that come from different parts of India and so all of us have a slight Hindi background as the national language of India is Hindi. Many individuals are also capable of speaking more languages than just English and Hindi including myself as I can also speak Punjabi. 

During my time in taking Hindi, I have also gained the leadership competency of other perspectives. Since I have such a diverse class with many individuals, I have come to learn about their unique perspectives on learning Hindi and about the Indian culture. Half of the class is made of up Desi students and the rest are students that have close relationships with other Indians. It is an interesting mix and it has taught me that people come from all types of backgrounds that want to learn the same thing you are interested in. While I may be learning Hindi to be better able to impress my parents who can speak Hindi, some students in my class are learning it to impress their Indian in-laws. 

Through this experience, I have also gained  a positive attitude. Learning a new language in the matter of a few months can get frustrating. It is daily work that consumes a lot of time and more than the average class. Having to understand new concepts on a daily basis was something that had to be kept up and this process could be frustrating if the concept wasn’t understood right away. I opted for bringing in a positive attitude and this helped me throughout the hardest process of learning how to read and write in Devanagari. I ended up learning all the concepts as I was open to working hard on mastering the language. A positive attitude helps push aside frustration and opens up your mind to realizing that you have the potential to learn anything you put your mind to. 

Going on from this experience, I want to further my study in my native language of Punjabi. When I lived in India at four years old, my Punjabi skills were good however, they faded over time as I moved to the U.S. and started learning English. I also hope to continue using these leadership competencies of collaboration, diversity and having a positive attitude as I further my learning in the classroom and go into my minor in my senior year. I will meet all types of individuals in the Sales Minor that I will be completing next year. I hope to bring in a positive attitude as I collaborate with diverse individuals.