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Submission information
Submission Number: 57
Submission ID: 347
Submission UUID: 5db2cb5b-df1a-46fb-8a91-90f9937f4177
Created: Sat, 05/01/2021 - 18:00
Completed: Sat, 05/01/2021 - 18:00
Changed: Sun, 05/11/2025 - 16:26
Remote IP address: 75.24.211.98
Submitted by:Anonymous
Language: English
Is draft: No
Flagged: Yes
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Aaditya
Pore
He/Him/His
Overland Park
Kansas
United States
66213
Aerospace Engineering
English (5), Hindi (4), Punjabi (4), French (3)
When I was younger, my family frequented India, visiting every few years until 2014. My parents were born in India and immigrated to the US. For them, India was their home. For me, it was a foreign environment vastly different than what I was used to. Being raised with a privileged lifestyle in the US, seeing the hardship and social contrasts in India was eye-opening. Understanding the lifestyle, social norms, and nuances of another country have allowed me to better connect to foreign cultures even in the classroom learning French. While observing the unique social system, the numerous people in poverty, and the average quality of life made me realize that when working across borders, it’s important to understand someone’s perspective through the lens of their upbringing and surroundings. I aspire to utilize this cultural sensitivity to strengthen relationships beyond borders in the professional world and the Global Engineering RAP, striving to be a great colleague and a better person.
High school summers are something else. From pool parties to nerf assassins to sleepovers where we stayed up until 3 am cracking jokes, not a day went by without something new. What truly made those days special, however, were my friends.
For me, my friends were an integral part of my high school experience. We learned from one another, grew together, and were comfortable together. Through every tough class and funny moment, we supported each other. It’s sad that in just a few months, all of us will be in different corners of the country, doing different things with different people.
Faced with unfamiliarity, we will find new connections, vastly different from before, but cherished nonetheless. It is this contrast to the past that we will grow from. Filled with new experiences with new friends, unfamiliarity will be the tool that shapes us. Down the hall from me, I want to find the people to navigate this unfamiliarity with me. Down the hall from me, I want to find the people that are willing to stay up just to stargaze. Down the hall from me, I want to find the people that are ready to explore the world around us, ready to try new things. Down the hall from me, I want to find someone who’s passionate about using their talents outside of the classroom. Down the hall from me, I want to find a classmate, a cofounder, an explorer - a friend.
For me, my friends were an integral part of my high school experience. We learned from one another, grew together, and were comfortable together. Through every tough class and funny moment, we supported each other. It’s sad that in just a few months, all of us will be in different corners of the country, doing different things with different people.
Faced with unfamiliarity, we will find new connections, vastly different from before, but cherished nonetheless. It is this contrast to the past that we will grow from. Filled with new experiences with new friends, unfamiliarity will be the tool that shapes us. Down the hall from me, I want to find the people to navigate this unfamiliarity with me. Down the hall from me, I want to find the people that are willing to stay up just to stargaze. Down the hall from me, I want to find the people that are ready to explore the world around us, ready to try new things. Down the hall from me, I want to find someone who’s passionate about using their talents outside of the classroom. Down the hall from me, I want to find a classmate, a cofounder, an explorer - a friend.
As we become more comfortable with and gain easier access to networking with individuals all around the world in our professional - and even personal - lives, transcending the traditional barriers of language is more important than ever, and being able to join a program like the Global Engineering RAP would enable me to improve my skills in doing so.
Through my four years of studying French in high school, I was astonished to see how much more culture I was exposed to through learning language; I found that oftentimes, lifestyles become imprinted in the way a population represents their thoughts, or their language. Through working to understand French and the nuances of the same, I was shown lights of French and North African cultures that I would’ve never been able to experience before. Being from a minority population myself, I understood how important this perspective is. From my experiences in India, I saw that many people’s worldview is shaped by culture; societal norms, ideals, and expectations morph the idea of success and prosperity, as well as what is and isn’t acceptable, in the eyes of the population. Thus, to understand why people think a certain way and prioritize certain things, it’s key to understand what their culture frames as important, and unfortunately, language barriers often bar us from understanding the same.
I’ve always aspired to work beyond my country and try my best to use my engineering skills to help those in other countries that could benefit from them, and I’ve realized that language plays a large role in ensuring that my efforts there are effective. I hope to join groups like Engineers without Borders to work to expand infrastructure in communities that suffer from the lack of the same, and my experience through my own cultural background as well as what I learned through French has taught me that it takes more than a surface level, technical analysis of a problem to solve it. I’ve been taught to empathize first before engineering solutions, and if I can’t empathize with a population’s needs due to language barriers, then effective solutions can often become hard to achieve. Being able to be a part of the Global Engineering RAP will help me widen my worldview, exposing me to different languages, and thus cultures, leading me to becoming an individual that can do more to serve communities.
As an individual, further gaining insight into various cultures will help me reevaluate my priorities and worldview to ensure that it is the best for me. We often become engulfed in our own cultural and societal norms, and introducing the knowledge of distinct and different norms can often help in reshaping what we unknowingly prioritize. This is an experience I’ve personally had after becoming older and more aware of my own cultural norms, and I hope to further it through this RAP.
When it comes to personal contribution, I believe that my experience growing up in a unique culture can help provide for new insight into cultures for my peers. While learning languages and understanding history is one thing, being able to conceptualize those by seeing them articulated into a lifestyle that you can see in a peer is a different experience that can elevate the understanding of a culture completely. Additionally, knowing that many Asian and African cultures share similar values to my culture has enabled me to understand these cultures that much more. I hope to be able to bring this perspective into discussions while being a part of the RAP and foster engaging conversations that can help frame foreign cultures in a familiar manner.
Through my four years of studying French in high school, I was astonished to see how much more culture I was exposed to through learning language; I found that oftentimes, lifestyles become imprinted in the way a population represents their thoughts, or their language. Through working to understand French and the nuances of the same, I was shown lights of French and North African cultures that I would’ve never been able to experience before. Being from a minority population myself, I understood how important this perspective is. From my experiences in India, I saw that many people’s worldview is shaped by culture; societal norms, ideals, and expectations morph the idea of success and prosperity, as well as what is and isn’t acceptable, in the eyes of the population. Thus, to understand why people think a certain way and prioritize certain things, it’s key to understand what their culture frames as important, and unfortunately, language barriers often bar us from understanding the same.
I’ve always aspired to work beyond my country and try my best to use my engineering skills to help those in other countries that could benefit from them, and I’ve realized that language plays a large role in ensuring that my efforts there are effective. I hope to join groups like Engineers without Borders to work to expand infrastructure in communities that suffer from the lack of the same, and my experience through my own cultural background as well as what I learned through French has taught me that it takes more than a surface level, technical analysis of a problem to solve it. I’ve been taught to empathize first before engineering solutions, and if I can’t empathize with a population’s needs due to language barriers, then effective solutions can often become hard to achieve. Being able to be a part of the Global Engineering RAP will help me widen my worldview, exposing me to different languages, and thus cultures, leading me to becoming an individual that can do more to serve communities.
As an individual, further gaining insight into various cultures will help me reevaluate my priorities and worldview to ensure that it is the best for me. We often become engulfed in our own cultural and societal norms, and introducing the knowledge of distinct and different norms can often help in reshaping what we unknowingly prioritize. This is an experience I’ve personally had after becoming older and more aware of my own cultural norms, and I hope to further it through this RAP.
When it comes to personal contribution, I believe that my experience growing up in a unique culture can help provide for new insight into cultures for my peers. While learning languages and understanding history is one thing, being able to conceptualize those by seeing them articulated into a lifestyle that you can see in a peer is a different experience that can elevate the understanding of a culture completely. Additionally, knowing that many Asian and African cultures share similar values to my culture has enabled me to understand these cultures that much more. I hope to be able to bring this perspective into discussions while being a part of the RAP and foster engaging conversations that can help frame foreign cultures in a familiar manner.
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