When I announced the Google field trip to our girls at Railway, they began to scream. Not anything in particular—no particular yelps of excitement—just one extended scream, as if our classroom had suddenly devolved into a Bacchic frenzy. But we didn’t blame them. We’d visited the Google office in Hyderabad once before, and it seemed, in my eyes, to be a veritable playhouse for geniuses—snack bars and pool tables and caroms stations on every floor, laundry services, spa rooms, napping pods, a gourmet cafeteria, and some of the most innovative minds in the modern tech industry. We were pretty excited for the trip ourselves.
Queueing up at Railway for the Google buses.
I asked the girls to write down questions about Google for homework. They came back with “Who invented the internet?” and “Is Google a person or a company?”
“The girls just don’t understand what the internet is,” I complained to Sam. “I mean, not what it is, but what it really is.”
“Well, yeah, but…” Sam looked at me. “Do you?”
Anyone for whom the loss of internet access would be only slightly less disorienting than watching zombies take over the world, but who cannot construct a coherent sentence explaining what the internet really is, should consult the following Barney-level introduction to the world wide web: http://www.20thingsilearned.com/en-US.
The day began with a long journey from Lallaguda to Hi-Tech City. Google sent three cushy buses to whisk us off. For me that meant gently dozing to the futile honkings of Hyderabad morning traffic and occasionally being awoken by an “Are we there yet?” Sam’s bus experienced three distinct phases: the group-karaoke-and-dance-in-your-seat-to-your-favorite-song phase, the vomit-out-the-window phase, and the final exhaust-yourself-until-you-fall-into-comatose-slumber phase. Srilekha, on the other hand, taught the students on her bus a Telugu song and they sung it all perfectly, memorized, in unison.
Tee hee.
This bus is about to break into song.
The girls were struck with wonder when we arrived. They lingered at the wide-paneled glass windows, the glossy elevators, the hot-and-cold water dispensers. Some were also struck with a case of nerves. “Ma’am, I’m getting afraid,” Navaneetha shivered to me in the elevator, inducing a circle of vigorous nods around her. Fortunately, we immediately split off into small groups for lunch with Google employees, who allayed the girls’ fears with a glorious spread of curries, soups, sambar, dal, exquisite pulihora, lassi, cakes, unlimited kulfis and chocobars—ahem. Right. Blog post.
Waiting in the lobby for Google to name-tag all 60 girls, 6 Railway teachers, 3 TMS fellows, 2 TAs, and Piya. Nice work, Google.
At lunch, the students had the awesome opportunity to chat with employees from the advertising, sales, and engineering departments about how exactly they’d gotten to Google and the kinds of projects they’re working on now. Plus, the girls had the awesome opportunity to brag about their own achievements—Heena’s a superstar runner, Hemalatha’s good at math—and to tell the Googlers about the trials of learning videography and Final Cut Express in TMS class.
Gazing tenderly at lunch.
The chocobar--a national pastime.
We trooped to the meeting room after lunch, half-eaten ice cream bars in hand, for an internet workshop. We began with the heart of Google, its search function, and learned how to upload photos into image search to identify pictures (confession: I didn’t know you could do that). We played with Google Maps, looking up directions to our favorite restaurant on RTC Cross Road and marveling at satellite views of Sam’s house in D.C. and Srilekha’s and my alma mater in New York.
The girls had a chance to pitch some of their tough questions directly to the Googlers—“What is the internet?” and “Who is answering when I ask questions on Google?”—and some less tough but equally vital ones, like “What does the word ‘google’ mean?” (Two graduate students name their company ‘Googol,’ after the really big number; man writes check to company but spells the name ‘Google’; students panic about convincing man to re-write check; students change name of company to ‘Google.’)
Sachin explains how to use Google Maps.
Sunitha filming the internet literacy workshop.
"Just...explain the internet to us real quick, will you?"
The highlights of the afternoon were the interviews. First, Mounika and Harika sat down with Mukesh, a software engineer, who grew up wanting to be a mathematician or a scientist, but was ultimately drawn to computer science for both its intellectual challenge and the fun of being able to see the immediate results of your work.
He urged the students never to be disheartened by one’s background or by others who seem better educated, because there will always be those who know more. “Whatever is past is past, but always try to do better,” he insisted, encouraging the girls to give themselves as much exposure to new ideas as possible and to constantly aim for one step higher.
The students asked Mukesh whether he believed the same opportunities were available to girls and boys in modern India, and although he was optimistic, he acknowledged the social factors contributing to a continuing gender gap. “In my village,” he said, “some parents feel that if girls are educated too much, it will be very difficult for marriage, because you won’t find an equal match…it is totally wrong.”
Mukesh also addressed the focus on test scores and academic rankings in the Indian education system, arguing that test scores often have little to do with how well one understands the essential concepts of a subject. “Now, I interview a lot [for Google]. I also see what their J.E. [junior engineering] ranking is. It doesn’t mean anything. If their J.E. ranking is top, I still reject, because they are not able to answer my questions. Fine, you got marks, or some ranking. But at the end of the day, what matters is—do you know your stuff?” He urges his own younger brothers never “to go mad for marks. If you aim for it, fine. But understand your subject. If you understand, then I am proud. If you just mark it and pass, I don’t care.”
He left the girls with an important message: “It’s about confidence. There are two things required. You should know your stuff. As a student, you should have knowledge about your subject. And you should be confident. It’s easy to say. It’s tough, I know that. But I can tell you—be confident. You are as good as anybody else.”
Mounika, Mukesh, and Harika.
Ramya and Sai Durga interviewed Suryanarayana, an online sales and operations senior manager, who offered a different take on the necessary steps for achievement. “There is absolutely no substitute for hard work,” Suri emphasized. “My professor told me that life has three parts for success. One part is luck. Two parts is your intelligence. And four parts is hard work.”
Suri wasn’t merely repeating a formula. He’d learned the hard way. He recounted his years in high school, when he’d do just enough work to pass his courses. “I could do more, but I didn’t…I wanted to go and watch all the movies, do all the nights out with my friends, do whatever…roam around. But when I went to IIM [Indian Institute of Management], it was a different world altogether.”
After his initial shock of nearly failing in his first semester at IIM, he imposed on himself a rigid regime. He woke up at six a.m. every morning and studied for his required subjects before and after class, following this schedule “religiously” for six months until he rose to the top. “In a set of brilliant people—people who are more capable than you—doing just the bare minimum and then trying to get away doesn’t work, especially if you have the potential to do more. So just put some discipline into it.”
Mukesh advised the girls to aim high and be confident; Suri added another essential element to the mix—an inner fire and drive to push forward. “Everybody comes from a lot of constraints. It’s up to your passion—what do you want to do? Some of you want to become painters, artists, you want to go act in movies, or you want direct movies, or you want to do business, or run a shop—you can do all of that. But I’m just thinking that you should want it badly enough. Do you want to do something badly enough?”
Suri also asked the girls not to remain complacent with the institutions regarded highly in India, like Google, but always to keep thinking about ways to improve the system and change the status quo. Rather than solely aiming for top positions currently available in a career path, this generation of students “should actually think about creating something better than what is there now,” he said, spotlighting those values of creativity and innovation that we’ve placed so much emphasis on in the TMS curriculum but are neglected in the pedagogy of many Indian government schools.
Suryanarayana, Sai Durga, and Ramya.
Neha filming the interviews.
Because the students are completing their final fimmaking unit, we thought it’d be fitting to end the day with an introduction to the magical functions of video on the internet. We started a group video chat on Google+ Hangouts with some of the Googlers we’d met throughout the day, and taught the girls how to create Gmail accounts to access these features. Krishna showed the girls how to get to YouTube, where they can search for video explanations of difficult concepts for school, or listen to their ever-present Bollywood favorites (currently “Chammak Challo” and “Sheila Ki Jawaani,” in case you’re curious), or—!—upload their own videos from TMS class.
Railway-Google field trip 2011!
Hey Thanks, Google! from The Modern Story on Vimeo.
