Summer School at the University of Madras

Medical Sciences students are unable to take an Erasmus year, so the Summer School represents a valuable career asset as well as a life-changing lesson in perspective. Lewis and Judith share their stories here.

Lewis Green

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist 

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." These words of Indira Gandhi, India’s first female Prime Minister, no better sum up my experience of two weeks in India as part of a summer programme run by the University.  I am truly thankful for the opportunity to have embarked on an adventure with entirely new people and new experiences. My advice to anyone pondering the decision to do something similar is to go ahead and do it.

A new perspective

With a science degree telling me to always be critical, trying to attempt my best yoga stretches on a rural Indian rooftop in the morning sun taught me to try looking at things from a new perspective. Being open to new experiences and cultures can only be positive, especially in a world which is rapidly changing and becoming more interconnected and multicultural than ever before.

Learning to communicate

Working in India with a slight language barrier (never mind a thick Scottish accent!) made me a better communicator. This was best demonstrated through conversations between students and groups of both rural parent and fishermen communities. Despite there being a language and cultural barrier between Tamil-speaking natives and English-speaking visitors, the group managed to have a well-understood and fluent discussion about contemporary issues facing the world and these communities today. I think that in itself speaks volumes about the advantages that can result from such an experience.

Ultimate reward

I may have made an application to the programme with slight apprehension, but the wonderful students and staff from Edinburgh and Madras have encouraged me to become a freer, more outgoing and more interesting individual. That is the ultimate reward from my summer in India.

Judith Sim

A week on the road

The Summer School at the University of Madras last August beautifully balanced study of India’s recent and ancient history with its emerging role as a major world economy. Five days of lectures on Indian society at the University of Madras (from a lively group of experts in their respective fields) was followed by a week on the road. This involved spending a weekend at the Garden of Peace, a project in the Gandhian tradition, to redress social injustice. Students cooked, kicked footballs around and listened to the experiences of children and their parents (and introduced them to the Gay Gordons) in beautiful rural Tamil Nadu. 

History, civil war and fishing

This brisk tour of southern Tamil Nadu also took in an afternoon in a fishing community at the tip of India. During a lengthy beach-side discussion with fishermen through interpreters, students learned how their trade was affected by the history of civil war in Sri Lanka, how they used new forms of technology and why they didn’t want their own sons and daughters to make a living from fishing. The fishermen in turn had many questions about the Scottish fishing industry – which the students, pooling their knowledge, were able to answer rather impressively.

India’s distinctive journey

We may have been met on our arrival at Chennai airport by the sight of a Costa coffee shop, but any idea that we were venturing into an exotic, globalised version of Bruntsfield or Newington was dispelled as soon as we stepped outside. The Summer School, led by Professor Ramu Manivannan, left us all with a sense of India’s very distinctive social, scientific and economic journey towards its current place in global order, and the uneven ways in which this is experienced within the country. The students came from a variety of disciplines – literature, law, economics and history and physics, as well as medical and biological sciences. Their questions about what they saw and heard reflected this disciplinary variety, and added a richness to what they as a group got out of the trip. They were a great credit to the University.

Opportunities for summer study abroad

Applications for the 2016 University of Edinburgh Summer School are now closed; get ready to apply next year.

In 2016, University of Edinburgh students can go to the University of Madras, a Swahili-learning trip to Tanzania, or study Chinese language and culture at Nanjing University in China. 

The Summer Schools, which are fully funded, were open in 2016 to students meeting Widening Participation criteria, with special priority given to students currently in first year, although students in second and third year meeting the criteria are also welcome to apply. 

The summer schools provide a particularly good opportunity to study abroad for those, such as Medical Sciences students, who are unable to take an Erasmus year. 

University of Edinburgh Summer School opportunities

All students are also able to apply to the Principal’s Go Abroad Fund, which provides grants of £350 or up to £700.

Go Abroad Fund