An immersive learning project gave nine Ball State students the opportunity to travel around Asia to help city residents bridge the gap between themselves and officials.
Their goal was to learn how people of different cultures and countries, like China, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, built the places where they live and learn their stories. With the stories, they were able to empower the communities to help them work better with officials.
However, many of the students on the trip discovered a new goal along the way of reflecting on themselves and their culture to better understand what drives their own day to day actions.
Rebecca Auger, a first year grad student, went on the trip not as an architectural or planning major, but as an English major. Auger used her different skills to set goals, trying to find alternative ways of communicating when there was a prominent language barrier between her and the townspeople.
“Living with so many different people was awesome and it helped build fast relationships,” Auger said.
She said different means of communication allowed her to build bonds with people in new ways. With this, she reached the point where she could give a general description of a place and everyone knew exactly what she meant.
Nelly Chavez, a senior, said for her, the trip was a complete “culture shock." Chavez said her favorite part was not only being able to help others, but also being fully immersed in the community and culture.
“It got me out of my comfort zone,” Chavez said. She said she tried many things that she otherwise would never have had an opportunity to.
Project director Nihal Perera, an urban planning professor, said in his opinion, the program is the best immersive learning project for students in the entire country. It left students with not only transferable work skills, but also with a new perspective on life, he said.
Yuyi Wang, a second year graduate student, said she had never felt Chinese before she went on the CAP Asia immersive learning trip, but it helped her feel more connected to her ancestors.
She used the trip as an opportunity to reflect on how her own actions are interpreted by other cultures and how to use this in her line of work.
“Students there reminded me of myself when I was younger, how we [can come] from different cultures and seem arrogant," Wang said.
She said some students within the project didn't understand why the group was taking the time to learn the locals' stories. But Wang realized understanding the other culture was the first step in helping them.
Graduate assistant Kaushalya Herath dove into the streets of Malaysia to also discover that the different cultures continued to develop similar to that of her own.
“I learned a lot about how women’s roles changed from housewife to business woman—all from listening to gossip,” Herath said.
It opened her mind to connecting with the different cultures to understand what a community needs and how to implement projects to help.
Perera said he takes pride in CAP Asia being a learning experience where students go and study ordinary stories to understand the people, then maybe learning globalization from it.
The trip served to help the students understand how to communicate with people from other cultures so they can collaborate with them on projects internationally, Perera said. They learned not how to control and redirect projects, but more how to emerge themselves and understand the lives these projects will affect, he said.
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