I have been fully disregarding this Happy New Year rule and have been wishing, “Happy New Year” to everyone I haven’t seen since 2023. I’ll continue to do so through the end of January, so be warned. Happy New Year, everyone! We just finished the first week of the Spring semester. It’s an incredible irony to be speaking so much of being in the spring … Continue reading On Celebrations and New Beginnings
8:00am Wakeup & Prep for the Day with Cafecito I try to be up and drinking my coffee by 8:00am. My morning routine this day consisted of making a to-go breakfast smoothie, packing lunch and getting out the door as fast as I could. 9:00pm Morning Library Session I rushed out not because of class or prior commitment, but because I’ve noticed that I’m way … Continue reading Another Wednesday as an IEDP Student
Dear Readers, We are done with two wonderful semesters of the IEDP and are unable to fathom how quickly it went by. Some of us are gearing up for Summer courses, some are planning itineraries for their internships, and some are graduating already! It is a bittersweet feeling; we are excited about thriving in the world outside of Penn and also nostalgic about our memories … Continue reading A Message For Future IEDPers: With Love, From the GAs
Dear Future IEDPers, Moving to a new country and paying so much for your course can be overwhelming! Well, here are several opportunities for you to cut-down costs of living in Philly and build your skill-set: IEDP Graduate Assistant (GA): As an IEDP GA, you work on strengthening the IEDP community through social media, events, and any other support the program faculty may need! You … Continue reading IEDPers: On Being A Graduate Resident Advisor (GRA)
Radhika Mittal This blog is for future IEDP students as you start to think about attending the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conference! Many peers from my cohort grappled with questions like what will I gain from it, how do I select which sessions to attend, or how do we network! I spoke to ten IEDP students who attended CIES 2023 in Washington DC … Continue reading Future IEDPers: Lessons From CIES 2023!
Hi! I am Qianyu Li (Cherry), a 1st year IEDP student. I am from China and if, like me, you wondered what the grad life experience in the US looks like. I am here to help you out! I yearned for a master’s degree and wanted to experience education in a foreign country for a long time. After several years of effort, I decided to … Continue reading A Day In The Life of An IEDPer’23
Dominique Liuzzo My parents gifted me an espresso machine for my birthday this year. When opening the gift, my mom explained it was to help save some money and, more importantly, because she thought I needed it. You may think to yourself, ‘another graduate student coffee cliché’. However, if you are an IEDP student, you would know that it is more than that. On a … Continue reading Guided By Cairns
Aishwarya Shetty On August 25th, I set foot in the USA for the first time. CNN, Netflix, and Instagram informed everything I knew about the country. Though Indian, I flew in from Qatar, where I spent most of my years growing up. If my life were a rom-com movie, the voiceover for me waiting for my Uber at the airport would say, “There she is, … Continue reading The 3 Cs of My IEDP Thus Far
Toto, a first-year IEDP student from Thailand, is interested in curriculum development and implementation. (You can find an introduction directly from Toto here!) 其实很多事情并没有对错，只是为人处世方式不同而已。 Under many circumstances, there is no right or wrong; it’s just that our ways of conducting ourselves are different. The above quote is a lesson I have learned so far in life. I am not Chinese; I am from Bangkok, Thailand, … Continue reading Unshock the Culture Shocks: An International Student’s Journey
Deepali is a first-year IEDP student from Mumbai, India. She is interested in technology in developing contexts. Winter break is almost over. We have covered yet another trip around the sun. Like every year, I take some time during New Year’s Eve to reflect on the year gone by. I do it not just because it is New Year’s Eve, but also because January is … Continue reading The Little (and Big) Things: Reflecting on the Fall Semester
The International Educational Development Program 