To India and Back: the Growth of Friendship within my PGS
WRIT 0120 members enjoying their visit to Qutb Minar in New Delhi on their last day in India
PGS: Science Accessibility in India
Charlize, one of the Penn Global Seminar Correspondents, shares her experience abroad during the Spring 2025 semester. Follow along with the group of correspondents on our blog and look out for their images on the @pennabroad Instagram feed.
It’s been a few weeks since we came back from India, and the bustling Indian streets I trekked have returned to the buzzing Locust walk. All our class icebreakers over the last few weeks have been all about our trip, including us showcasing our favorite five photos from the trip. With 4,704 photos in our shared album, it was so hard to just pick five. Each of those photos holds memories that I know we’ll all cherish forever.
As we return back to reality and work on our white papers and op-eds, I feel the sense of community everytime I walk into class. It’s like one big friend group that’s lucky enough to have scheduled time to meet together every week. We’ve bonded so much that another group trip is making it out of our group chat as we’ve decided to take a day trip together to New York City at the end of April. We support each other inside the classroom with constructive criticism in our peer-reviews, but also outside the classroom by attending each other’s dance and cultural shows. Each one of my fifteen classmates showcases an unique characteristic that I strive to incorporate into my daily life, making a small but significant impact on me. Taking a bit of structure from our writing seminar curriculum, their impacts have influenced me to think of my life as a logical outline and see what new revision plans I have moving forward. My main change: be thankful and open. All of us in the class are all so different, yet we mix so well. I am open to be any ounce of shy, quirky, silly, or serious at any point, and I know they will support me nonetheless. I am so thankful for this experience and in all honesty, if I were to go back to day zero, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I would love to relive all those days exactly as they were. There were definitely some tiring points of the trip, especially fighting jet lag, but it made the highs of exploring the beautiful country that India is absolutely worth it.
One of my favorites is our group class photo atop Mussoorie, a rooftop town near the Himalayan mountain range. I remember the laughter that filled the bus as we navigated the twists and turns of the winding roads. As I reflect, the juxtaposition of our class dynamic on the first day of classes to today is shocking. It’s like night versus day, from struggling to remembering each other’s names to knowing everyone’s future life goals. The growth of our friendships was the most surprising part of traveling for me. Originally, my motive for applying to this PGS was driven solely by my internal love for science and traveling; the potential of all the amazing people I could meet along the way never crossed my mind.
Since this is my last blog (but hopefully not my last trip with Penn Abroad), my advice for any future Penn Global Seminar student is to get to know your class. Find those commonalities that stretch farther than the scope of your course topic. Connect with others during class because you never know where those conversations will end up. Sustain those relationships outside of the classroom and don’t let the people you meet in your class just become strangers on buzzing Locust Walk.
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