To understand what globalization means to me after
journeying to India I first have to look back and understand what I thought of
globalization beforehand. I first encountered the term when I was set
to attend the Pennsylvania Governor's School for International Studies.
The pre-reading for the program was my first introduction to
understanding globalization. The author discussed the standardization of
society through the phenomenon of globalization. This book was thrilling
to me. It gave me exposure to college ideas and theories for the first
time. We never discussed globalization in high school. It was too new
of a development to be featured in our ancient text books.
Once at
the Governor's School we further explored globalization and everything
that it means and effects. All the students left with a better
understanding of just how interconnected they are with the rest of the world and
what goes on in it. Upon coming to Lehigh University in the fall I
entered Globalization and Cultures thinking that I had a good
understanding of globalization. It was better than most, but I soon realized
that I had much more to study. Our books discussed many new ideas and
different ways to view globalization. The first book presented
globalization in four fields which made it all much clearer to me. The rest of
the books in that class each presented great concepts. I thought I was
finally almost ready to go to India though.
Leaving for India provided the glue to my jigsaw puzzle understanding of globalization. Although the flight proved to be quite long it was still an amazing experience once I started to contemplate what was happening. By simply getting on this plane and sitting in this chair I was going to be taken half way around the world in less than a day. It used to take entire days to travel to towns in the same state; now I was going around the world in this plane. For me, it was truly a moment of interconnectedness with the rest of the world and all the possibilities around me.
During my experiences, the greatest change in what globalization means to me is that now it has a face in my mind. But more correctly put, it has many faces. These many faces belong to the Indians that we met in our journey. The people who seize the day through globalization through monetary profit, those who brought tears by making the world around them a better place for their neighbors through globalization, and the people that we saw who had fallen between the cracks. These people had boats that did not rise with the tide. I realized that among the faces of globalization, and no matter how it is used, there are inevitably winners and losers. This brings up many more questions in my mind. It makes me wonder if we should believe the forgotten people are worth the great advancement of mankind or if globalization is causing us to turn a blind eye to the masses who still need each and every one of us to help them.
I am a first year student at Lehigh University. As a member of the University's Global Citizenship Program I took classes concerning globalization and traveled to India this past winter.
