In conversations across the United States, I have often encountered questions about India that reveal how distant the country can seem in the American imagination. Some are lighthearted such as whether one might encounter elephants wandering through city neighborhoods, but they reflect a broader reality: for many people in the United States, India remains understood through fragments of media coverage, isolated narratives, or outdated stereotypes rather than lived experience.

This realization became particularly clear to me several years ago while working in a research laboratory alongside colleagues from many parts of the world. The environment was intellectually vibrant and globally diverse, yet discussions about India often relied on incomplete information or secondhand impressions. I came to recognize that the issue was not a lack of available scholarship or historical material about India. Rather, it was a gap between information and experience.
Academic knowledge is essential, but meaningful understanding of societies often emerges through direct engagement. One may read extensively about a country in libraries or classrooms, yet encountering its institutions, communities, and cultural contexts firsthand produces a different depth of learning. Experiential engagement allows ideas to move beyond abstraction and become tangible, contextualized, and human.

From this realization emerged a broader vision: preparing students not only as graduates, but as globally aware citizens; not only as professionals, but as culturally literate leaders capable of navigating complex international environments. The goal was to create opportunities where learning extends beyond textbooks and where students engage with societies directly observing institutions, collaborating with communities, and reflecting critically on their experiences.

Around the same time, I learned that universities in my region had begun developing short-term academic programs in India. Each year, small cohorts of students traveled to study aspects of Indian society, development, and public policy. Seeing this momentum, I began collaborating with faculty members who were leading these initiatives. Drawing on my networks with nonprofit organizations and community institutions in India, I assisted with identifying field projects aligned with course curricula and facilitating local partnerships that could enrich students’ academic experiences.

This work gradually evolved into a structured initiative. When the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University sought to launch a new India study program, I was invited to assist in developing elements of the curriculum and coordinating aspects of the short-term field program. What began as an informal collaboration grew into a more formal platform designed to support immersive academic engagement in India.

That platform became IUM Global (iumglobal.com) established to facilitate experiential learning programs that connect universities, students, and faculty with communities and institutions across India. The intention was not simply to organize travel, but to create academically grounded immersion experiences, combining coursework, field engagement, and reflective learning.
The most transformative moments often occurred outside formal academic settings: conversations during shared meals, walking through local communities, or listening to personal narratives from individuals whose lives intersect with the subject’s students’ study in class. In these moments, assumptions gave way to curiosity, and cultural distance was replaced by human connection.
These experiences highlight an important insight for global education: information alone rarely transforms perspectives; immersion often does. Students who encounter another society directly begin to understand complexity in ways that cannot be fully conveyed through lectures or readings alone.

Over the past eleven years, these programs have supported multiple short-term Study India initiatives in collaboration with universities. More than 250 students and 15 faculty members have participated in field-based programs across India. Their academic work has produced approximately 300 articles, research papers, theses, and course projects, contributing to classroom scholarship while also shaping personal and professional outlooks.

The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted these exchanges as international travel halted, and universities suspended study-abroad programs. As global mobility resumes, there is renewed interest in restarting these academic partnerships and expanding opportunities for students and faculty to engage with India.

Short-term, academically structured immersion programs have value not only for undergraduate students. They can also benefit researchers, policy scholars, think-tank professionals, entrepreneurs, and public leaders seeking a deeper understanding of one of the world’s most complex and rapidly evolving societies.

In an increasingly interconnected world, educational experiences that combine scholarship with lived engagement can help cultivate the cultural intelligence and global perspective required for responsible leadership. Programs that bring students and scholars into meaningful contact with societies beyond their own represent an important step toward that goal.

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