Today, we left XIME at around 6:30 for the Infosys Institute in Mysore. On the way we stopped at the big banyan tree and got to feed and play with wild monkeys! This was awesome!
Following our monkey stop, we had breakfast at Professor Ramakrishna’s sister’s house. Breakfast was delicious and included more coconut water, sambha, upma… I wish breakfast were like this back home. It was awesome to see Juanita and Scott running around chasing the school children in the neighborhood before their class started!
The Institute was amazing. It was better than any college campus I have ever seen. It included stores, a movie theatre, a resort-style swimming pool and rec center, an Olympic-sized track, and amazing restaurants. I was a bit dejected to learn that Infosys only hires MBAs from the top three US business schools. The rest are mostly engineers from India and other countries. Still the training here is superb… six months of training at Infosys is equivalent to a four year bachelors in computer science. It’s intense. I found myself thinking that maybe one day if I work really hard and save a lot, I’ll be able to send my kids to a school Infosys hires from and they’ll have the opportunity to apply if they want to. This thought alone is a testament to what I feel is to come from India in the future. As Dr. Vijay put it, for years India has experienced a brain drain because its best and brightest couldn’t find any opportunities or satisfaction within the country. In the future, this will happen in the United States, and people will be flocking to India like crazy.
