From Kerala to Harvard Kennedy School | Nidhi Nair

In Episode 5, we meet Nidhi Nair, a Master of Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and Schwarzman Scholar with a background in Economics and Statistics. Nidhi shares her journey from growing up in Kerala to navigating global education opportunities, reflecting on the moments that shaped her path and how she learned to seize opportunities both inside and outside the classroom.

Beyond Harvard is a platform that highlights the stories of the Harvard University community, uncovering who they are at Harvard and beyond. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I did grow up in the only democratically elected communist state in the whole world. How a lot of these large state schools function as engines of economic mobility in the United States. I came to realize that maybe the way we live is not the best way to live, and that I came to respect a lot of different ways of life in a way that I didn't before. It's always like shoot your shot.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

I'm your host, Rashana Wearsinga, and on today's episode, we meet Millie Nair, a master's candidate in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Take a listen as we learn about the experiences that shaped her journey and how she navigated ambition, identity, and impact across borders. Enjoy. Millie Nair, welcome to Beyond Harvard. Thank you for having me. I am so excited to have you. And I know I mentioned this to you briefly, but my first introduction to you was I saw you in my inbox, and then I saw you in a brochure, and then I saw you on a screen. And I I think this is no coincidence. You deserve all the recognition to set the stage for our listeners a bit. You were born and grew up in Indiana, and then you came over to the States. You studied econ, math, and stats as an undergrad, and then you went over to Beijing, you did your master's in global affairs as a Schwartzmann scholar, and now you're back here. And you're a public policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. Yes. So we have so much to unpack. Um but I first want to maybe rewind a little bit and learn a little bit more about your childhood, your upbringing, what was it like growing up in India?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Well, thank you so much for having me. First of all, I'm really grateful to be here. And I guess I grew up very close to where your family came from, too, in Sri Lanka. I grew up in this small state in India called Kerala. Kerala is the bottom tip of the of the Indian subcontinent, and it's known for being full of coconut trees and beaches and lagoons, and it's a stunning place. I grew up in this small city called Kochi. Um and my parents had like good upper middle class like urban professional jobs, and they always wanted to come abroad and study in the United States. And my mom finally had the opportunity to do that when I was around 13 years old. So she immigrated first to the US, then my little brother, then me, and then my dad. And the only college that I really applied to was the University of Connecticut. Oh, really? My mom was a professor there. It was an incredible once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to attend school there. So yeah, that's kind of how I made up made it over here.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Okay, that's awesome. And so you knew you wanted to go to Yukon.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

And then how did you I guess maybe before you even came to the States, what was that transition like? Kind of growing up in the south of India and then coming over to the Northeast here, and I'm sure climate was one huge difference. But also just what were what were some of the differences you noticed as as you were moving between between the two?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

No, I mean that's that's a great question, especially because I think every person who immigrates to the US has a very distinct experience. Everybody struggles with different things, but fundamentally it's kind of a uniting experience because so many of us come to this country hoping for something new and exciting and better than the life that we left back home. Growing up in India was wonderful. I was lucky enough to grow up in a pretty big tier B city in India. Um, and I was happy to grow up in an urban place, but I did grow up in the only democratically elected communist state in the whole world. So we ours was the only government to actually elect a communist government into power through the ballot box and the first to do so. So it was definitely an interesting place to grow up. Um there was very little growth, but also very high like human development indices, which we kind of talked about a little bit. Like the the state where I grew up, it had a hundred percent literacy rate for men and for women, and it had the highest sanitation indices, it had the highest like just human development indices across the board in terms of just like the ability for women to go out there and work, for parity and pay, for a lot of the kind of metrics that you look at to analyze growth. Kerala was a state that was at the top of almost every list, lowest poverty rate in the country, and it's a very unique development model, and that kind of is what piqued my interest in economics as well growing up, was because I grew up in a state which technically was a communist socialist state, but still was doing relatively well and had the lowest poverty rate, and the the comparison of the two was really interesting, so that was kind of my ideological upbringing, I guess, growing up.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Wow. Okay, and so it seems like so much of your upbringing in India has informed your choice to pursue economics and yes and and stats. Um curious to know a little bit more about your time uh at UConn and kind of how maybe what were some of those or what were some of the experiences that you had that you think really shaped kind of who you are.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Yeah, absolutely. I think a big part of growing up in India in a state that had as many of the contradictions that Kerala had was moving to the US felt like a natural first step for me because I wanted to be able to understand what kind of institutions make a place succeed and what kind of institutions lead a place to kind of economically stagnate, like my home state of Kerala. So when I came to the University of Connecticut on a fully funded educational experience that was funded by the state government of Connecticut in the United States, a country that's huge, I'm not a citizen of. It was kind of amazing to be able to navigate because that is the the biggest, like we we've discussed how that is like America's talent advantage is their ability to be able to attract people from around the world and to give them the opportunity to learn in some of the world's best institutions and like be free thinking in that way, which is an opportunity I didn't have as much when I was growing up in in India. But coming to Connecticut was amazing because as as you know, UConn is a great school. Going to a big public state school taught me a lot about, first of all, like assimilating to what to America, which is an uphill battle for a lot of us. It's a very different society and people are very different. And I learned a lot when I was at Yukon, and I think being able to engage in economics and public policy and like to be able to get the quantitative backing to kind of engage in those studies was really exciting for me because back home you only really had two to three options when you're an 18-year-old girl looking to pursue an education. You could either go into the science track and become an engineer, right? Or you could go take the national level entrance exam and become a doctor, or you could go into like the the rarely sought-out commerce track for like I think less than like three or four percent of Indians go down that track to become lawyers or economists or administrative officials. Like majority of us ended up doing engineering or you know, more of the hard sciences. And I knew that I wanted a liberal arts education where I could learn about econ and mathematics, but also be able to engage in like public policy, political science. And Yukon was the best way to marry all those things. So a very long-winded way of saying that Yukon was actually the best decision I think I've ever made in my life. And I've always I've always been very grateful for it. And I'm sure you are too. We had very we had parallel experiences.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Positive experiences. Positive Go Husky is a Go Husky.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Definitely is a great school.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Yeah, no, I I mean that's remarkable. And I think it's worth sharing with the audience, Snowy, a little bit of some of sort of the records you've broken. You were the first ever Yukon student to be named a Schwartzmann Scholar. Yes. Which is a very prestigious scholarship. Um you also, I mean, during your time there, you gave a great, I mean, I listened to your TED talk, it was wonderful. Oh my god. You gave a great TED talk, you were the commencement speaker. So I, you know, during your time, it seems like you were really able to take advantage of many opportunities, I think, both at UConn that perhaps kind of crafted the rest of you know your your narrative and the journey that you went on to pursue after. And so I want to get into that a little bit more. But before we do so, one thing you had shared with me, which I thought was really interesting, was your take on the idea of UConn being a great mobility engine, um, as opposed to maybe some of the other spaces that we've been in. Could you just touch on on that a little bit more and exactly what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think like what I was referring to when I was talking about just how a lot of these large state schools function as engines of economic mobility in the United States. And I was I was always really interested in this topic because I think in the US, economic mobility is steadily declining, and college and universities are no longer the engine of mobility and the great equalizer that people thought they would be years ago. And now you can you can go to a school like UConn, but it's very likely that that's not necessarily going to lead you to have the kind of career that would help you make more than your parents did, right? And that's a serious contention that we need to deal with. Like a lot of people who also go into Ivy League universities, like at Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, it's not likely that you're going to make more than your parents did because you're also coming in at the same socioeconomic status as your parents. And at UConn, it was an interesting way for me to kind of analyze this issue because UConn sits right in the middle of the tiers of universities through which you can kind of push beyond your economic strata into the next league. Because as you as I'm sure you know, a lot of smaller state schools, like in Connecticut, those were SCSU, CCSU, these are tinier state schools, not the big flagship schools that you hear of from big states, right? Like UT Austin, etc. The smaller state schools tend to be more objective engines of mobility. They tend to like actually push people from one socioeconomic status standard to another. And the kind of schools that like UConn kind of is in the middle of the experience where you can either that can be like the next big propeller of economic growth for you, or it can just be another way for you to stagnate, as we know looking at employment outcomes now in this in this job market. So it's kind of interesting to be able to analyze that in the in the broader goal of my my career goal, which is to like kind of learn more about economic mobility and how to help people kind of push beyond their current socioeconomic status to the next level.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Wow, so movement, especially within that area. That's interesting. And I mean so I'd love to know a little bit more about that decision to kind of continue your education and why you decided to apply for the Schwarzman scholarship. And yeah, and you study global affairs, and I certainly see a through line there between econ and affairs and policy, but I'm curious to know about that decision and maybe some of you know the other choices you had to make there.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah, I I think a lot of it was was uh kind of initiated by my curiosity in like for economic mobility in the United States. So as I mentioned, like mobility is declining in the US, and it's declining in a lot of Western globalized countries, right? Like it's just a lot of us are just probably not going to make more money than our parents did in our lifetimes. And that's a deep concern because if people don't have hope to grow, they're unlikely to try, and populism and discontent just grows. And I think that we're seeing that across the US and in many other countries in the EU and beyond. And I kind of wanted to understand what that would be like in the most populous country in the world. Because in China, similar to the US, economic mobility is on the decline. A lot of educated graduates in China from schools that are elite, like Qinghua University or Peking University, they're not able to get access to the same kind of jobs that were guaranteed to them before. And that kind of hope is what keeps Chinese stability kind of alive. Because the way the Chinese elite selection mechanism works is that you give people the opportunity to succeed through these national entrance exams, and by dangling the carrot of being able to go to these elite schools and get your kids out of the socioeconomic status you're in, without that hope to cling on to, it's very hard to try to keep, it's really hard to keep pushing, and it's really hard to believe in the system that doesn't really promise anything good for your children. So I wanted to understand that from the Chinese perspective because in the US we're dealing with a very similar problem, but just under very different constraints. So when I was thinking of scholarships and fellowships that I could apply to after Yukon, I knew I wanted to study abroad. But a lot of people-to-people student exchange programs with China were on the decline given US-China relations right now. But the Schwarzmann Scholars Program was one of the only programs that allowed Americans to go understand what the sinocentric perspective is like. And you get to spend a whole year there, you get to like live in Beijing, you get to like meet tons of people who love living in China and who deeply love their country and like gain access to a different way of life. And Americans have very little exposure to that. And I think that the program was an amazing opportunity to kind of get that kind of exposure and bring it back to the US because we can't afford to not understand the Chinese perspective in this world where China's the most populous country in the world and one of our biggest trade partners, and it's important that we understand them as much as they understand us.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Absolutely. And what were some of those perspectives that you wanted to kind of bring back with you as you wrapped up that year?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

That's that's a great question because I think a year abroad is challenging for everybody, no matter where you go. But in China specifically, I think I learned that in America we have this belief in American exceptionalism and that this is the only great way to live. This is an amazing country. And I definitely believe that and I agree with that. I think the US is an amazing country. I'm very grateful to be here. But I think a lot of Americans miss out on the on the opportunity to understand that people genuinely love the way they live back home as well. And I met a lot of Chinese people who genuinely love being Chinese and having the opportunity to like live in Beijing, who felt very strongly about being Beijing Ren, like to of being from their capital city. And I think I learned that their like their way of life is also incredible, and there's an ease and quality of life that we don't even have access to in the United States. Just the quality of services in China were unparalleled, right? Like you could walk into a grocery store and pay for things with just your face. No card, no wallet, nothing. Like if I were stuck in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and one of my contacts fell out, I could go on Meiton or something and then order contacts and they would get to me in 15 minutes. Wow. It was just things. 15 minutes. 15 minutes. It was amazing. It's just amazing. It's such an incredible country. Also, the natural beauty is so unparalleled. Like it is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. I got the opportunity to go to like 13 different provinces. So I gotta go to Gui Lin and gotta go to Xinjiang and like all of these amazing, stunning.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

All within that year.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

All within the year. Because for a lot of the year, our goal was exposure to what different per different perspectives. And that was kind of exploring the country. And it's as diverse as the United States is, and it's as diverse as India is, where every state has different subcultures, and like people live very differently. It's a very rich place to go visit. But in the US, we have very limited perspectives on what, in on how the other side lives and on how most of the world lives. And I think that's kind of the more empathy for different ways of life, is what I bought back to the US. And it made me a lot more understanding of a lot of different systems, and I came to realize that maybe the way we live is not the best way to live, and that I came to respect a lot of different ways of life in a way that I didn't before. It was the first time I lived in a country that's not a democracy. Because both both India and the United States pride themselves on being thriving democracies, and China doesn't have that, but it had a lot more stability than India when I was growing up there, and it had a lot less populism and a lot of public discontent like the US. Like it seemed to have its own pros, right? So yeah, that's kind of what I bought back.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Wow, it seems like there was so much learning that happened kind of outside of the classroom there for you. Just in terms of like actually going there, being there sort of on the ground, visiting places there, learning about the culture, the lifestyle. And it seems, I think you know, you worded it so beautifully in terms of empathy and kind of having this or rediscovering this new perspective on life. Um I'm I'm interested to know now, Nettie, because you're pursuing your second master's. One wasn't enough. Still knowing to this. Um I want to know a little bit more about that thought process and and that experience too. Like what made you decide to pursue a master's in public policy, YHKS? Could you share a little bit more about that, that as well?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, I I think I think when I was in China, I was a little lost as to what I wanted to do with my career. Okay because before I applied to the Schwartzmann Scholars Program, which I highly recommend everybody apply to. If you're under the age of 27, you should definitely apply. It's worth it. But when I was thinking about what to do, I knew that I wanted to be involved in public policy of some kind. And I was thinking at some point that I would I would maybe I would be interested in foreign policy. But in China, I found out more about things that I did not want to do over the things that I absolutely knew I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Which is just as helpful.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Right, yeah. It's definitely helpful to check off things as well. Like that was that was I'm really grateful to the program for that as well. But one thing that I discovered I did want was to be able to kind of be able to track the impact of the kind of work I choose to dedicate my life to. And I became really interested in state and local government work. Because in China, there's a really interesting model where Beijing's like CCP officials get sent to different provinces across the country to kind of run these provinces like their own, like it's a company. Like there's a level of policy innovation that happens in China that the US could really learn from. Like there were AI labs in 2020 in China. Oh wow. While we haven't even, like in the United States, we hadn't even conceived of like trying to localize that, you know, and trying to like like account for job losses from AI. But that's something that was already being implemented in different in different provinces in China because of the decentralized policy innovation that's already happening because each province is kind of run like a company. And I think that got me really interested in like how do we bring that model to the US? How do we kind of make sure that like state and local governments can act like laboratories of like democracy, right? Like at the local level, you can truly innovate on policies, run pilot projects, and like you can you can scale up projects at a way faster pace than you can at the federal level. So then HKS was the best master's program that would give me access to a wide range of experiences within state and local government. And it did, it did deliver. When I came to HKS, I worked with the city of Hartford, the city of East Hartford, the city of Wilmington. I ended up doing a lot of consulting projects with state and local governments, and it helped me build experience and understanding how to innovate at a local level and to be able to track changes in these communities with your own two eyes on projects that you've worked on. And that kind of involvement in a public policy project is not something that I would have gotten in DC working at the federal level. So that was kind of the main impetus for why I applied to HKS, and I'm really grateful I did. It's been one of the best two years of my life.

unknown 21:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

That's that's incredible. So it seems like you came in with wanting to test out this hypothesis of learning more about working sort of at the local level, and then you've been able to do that through some of the internships and settings that you've held. Is there anything that upon arriving to and kind of pursuing the program here where maybe your perspective has shifted, or anything that sort of the program in the school maybe opened you to a new approach or a new perspective that you didn't think of kind of coming in?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah, I I think this is more I I feel like that's one of the best parts about Harvard is you meet so many incredible people in classes and in events and programs that you do that it's kind of inevitable that your life will fundamentally change in some way or the other when you do a Harvard master's program. And I knew that going in, and one of the best things that I learned going into the program is I really Really learned more about myself by observing different types of leaders around me. The way HKS works is the MPP program has a wide range of students in it. So there are students who are 21 to 22, and then you have like 32 plus, you know, like people who have had multiple years of work experience and have held incredible roles in government across the world in their countries.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Very senior folks.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Very senior people who come and want to upskill at Harvard. And I think understanding these different leadership types, I learned a lot about what I knew I was good at and what I knew I wanted to develop. So one thing, for example, that I learned that is that I really love short-term projects. I like problem solving and I like being a generalist in that way. I like being able to problem solve in different contexts and then keep moving. To build a portfolio of projects that I've worked on, of clients that I've worked with, I really deeply enjoy that. And I wouldn't have, I don't think I would have known that before coming to HKS. And this is an educational experience that gave me the chance to learn that.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Wow, that's that's powerful. And I I know you and I maybe have briefly talked about I mean that you have a very strong quantitative background. And you mentioned when you came to HKS in some degree too, that your focus was more on the soft skills and also picking that up as well. Could you speak a little bit more to how you kind of tailored your approach while you were a student here to sort of seek out the experiences and the skills that you wanted to develop?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yeah, I think that's another incredible part of the Harvard graduate programs is you really have a lot of agency in how you want to shape the experience. And I studied economics and mathematics and statistics when I was at UConn.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Which was like the numbers.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

And like I genuinely feel like I learned so much and so little at the same time because yeah, like it felt like one of those like learning all of these subjects. I don't know if I would recommend that. You know, I don't know if you should triple major, guys. Like maybe that's not something you should do. Don't do it. Because I feel like I learned a lot, but also I took out very few actionable like skill sets out of it. But I think the best part about HKS is they give you tangible skill sets. Like one of the first courses that we took, I don't know if you've heard of the negotiations sequence, but it's an incredible course that kind of forces you to like battle it out with your with your colleagues and to be able to engage in like in a very tense environment to be able to find some kind of agreement and some kind of win for all is something that I'd never truly engaged in before. And it was kind of amazing to be in a simulation that forced you to do that. So there were these tangible skill sets that I was getting from HKS that were not quantitative in nature, and that kind of pushed me to kind of pursue more of the soft skills that HKS kind of helped you develop, which is like being able to negotiate effectively, being able to brief someone who is senior to you and to communicate a complicated issue in less than like three or four minutes. And the way HKS does it is that sometimes a few professors will just walk down the hallway and you just kind of run after them and you you brief them as they're speed walking. Wait, really? That's like that's an actual assignment. That's an actual assignment. Yeah. At the end of like um one of our courses, they like simulate being a busy say you're say you're in Congress and you have a you have an incredibly busy boss in a hallway. So you're just running down the hallway briefing this person on like a terrorist attack that just happened. And it's like a simulation of something that's incredibly tense and it forces you to think on your feet. And all these soft skills I found I was gaining a lot more value from than taking a Python course that I, you know, now you can vibe code and do that on Claude. Like I feel like there's so many things that you can just that are hard to pick up by yourself that HKS kind of equips you with.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah, and they're so it's so applicable too. Yeah. But you can apply it in so many different contexts, whether, you know, I mean, I the hallway assignment is I think it's and I assume it's a graded side. Yeah, it is, right? It is graded, yeah. And it's teaching you so many different skills from like thinking on your feet to thinking about like distance-wise too, physically.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

I mean how they like hold someone's attention. To be very honest, I completely bombed that hallway briefing. And I didn't do a great job, and it kind of forced me to think about how can I be better when communicating. And like communication is an incredibly important skill set in the United States, way less than in India where I grew up, where I think a lot of value is placed on hard work and the deliverables that you put out there. Okay. But how you pitch the results of what you worked on, probably a lot less important than in the US, where communicating insights is equally as important as getting the work done. And I think that was it was a great way to kind of like smack that into me when I was doing my doing the HKS MPP because it kind of forced me to build those skills.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

I'd actually love to dig into that a little bit more because I seem that seems like another key difference, right? Of like instead of just burning the midnight midnight oil, but actually like being able to advocate for yourself and shared results, etc., what you've accomplished. It seems like there's sort of a paradigm shift, like even you know, sort of across the continents what what maybe they value.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Right. And how and how you need to present that information together.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

No, I love the way you phrase that. It does feel like a paradigm shift because at least the way I grew up in India and the way I know my parents grew up as well, there's a lot of emphasis on the hard metrics of what you bring. Like, what are your test scores? What was your national rank when you took the IITJE entrance exam, for example? Like all those things like matter a lot more than how you're able to pitch yourself. Kind of um what is your narrative? How did you live your life? How did you grow up? All of those, all of those soft questions were not really a part of our assessment uh when it came to applying to college, when it came to applying to jobs. There was less of an emphasis on that. And when I moved to the US, one of the big paradigm shifts for me was understanding that in the US there's a lot of emphasis placed on this amorphous idea of what your story is. But obviously, our story is being written every day. It's not like already set in stone at the age of 18, right? When you're applying to these schools, but there's a heavy emphasis placed on being able to kind of pitch yourself like a product. And in many ways, I think there's value in both systems. And I think people who have navigated both systems come out stronger because they are able to kind of focus on the deliverables and the hard work, but also able to sell those ideas effectively once they have done the hard work, right? I think that was one of the biggest appeals to immigrants around the world to come to the US was to be able to build those soft skills as well and to make it in a country that needed both.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah, absolutely. And so now I have to ask Eddie, what were some of your your sort of moments and self-homents that you think kind of make make up your story?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Wow, I think a lot of it centers around my family and the way I grew up, and my parents have always emphasized the value of education, which is a very South Asian Asian thing where we just value education. There's there's a huge emphasis placed on trying your best and like learning as much as you can and taking advantage of the systems that you're lucky enough to be in. My parents are very ambitious people, horse drivers, and they always wanted us to have a better life than they did, and I think that that kind of like it also sparked my interest in economic mobility because I want to be able to understand how everybody can have better lives than than their parents did, and everybody deserves to keep keep moving forward in some way. So I think one of the biggest integral, like I would say the foundation of my story is the way I grew up, as it is for a lot of us. But for me, like there's no like there's no grand mixture of things, it's just my family and and my upbringing.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

And the values, right? Yeah, because I think that shows up. I mean, you don't need to be physic you don't have to physically be in India to carry those values with you. Yeah, definitely travel.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

It's just always gonna be a part of us.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Exactly. Yeah. And so you're completing your your second master's now in May.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Is there another educator like what's what's on the horizon? Do you do you plan on staying in in the academia space? Do you want uh what sort of what are you thinking about?

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Hopefully no more school. I was no more school for the foreseeable future. Okay, okay. But I would love to be employed. I would also love to work for a mission-driven organization or to work for city or local government. That is that is my goal for after I graduate. Because now that I like all of this education and all these experiences have helped me cut out things that I know I don't want to do, and it's helped me focus in on the fact that I know that I want to be able to see the impact of what I work on, and um, there are a lot of opportunities to do that at HKS and and beyond. So I'm excited. I think ending endings and beginnings kind of have the same exciting feel to it, and I'm looking forward to graduating, but also looking forward to the next step for sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah, because I was I realized you've sort of been in school your whole life.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

You went straight from from undergrad to China where you did your first master's, and then isn't it right after you came here and did your second class?

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

So sort of back to back. Within the span of what, like six years or so? Yeah. No, seven years. Seven years probably. Yeah, I think. Which is impressive. And and kudos to you, right? That is amazing. But I I'm curious to know, like, what's your relationship with yourself and how do you think about who you are outside of the classroom because you spent so much time in these in these settings?

SPEAKER_00 31:54

I think I think it's going to be a steep learning curve for me to be out of the real world for sure. And then you're like, I miss the classroom, I'm gonna miss that classroom. There is something like so nice about the structure of being in an academic space. Like it's also it's the first and probably the last time that you're gonna live in such a live in such a walkable, livable community where your friends live just down the street from you, or just like a short walk away, and you get to see them for dinners, and life feels like full and rich, and it's all given to you. It's exciting, it's happening. Exactly. It's happening. It's honestly incredible, and we're very lucky to have experienced it both at UConn and at Harvard. It's kind of amazing to be able to get that kind of exposure because there's something truly so unique about the American education experience. And for all its flaws, there is something incredible about being able to live in the same space, being able to exchange these kind of ideas with people from all over the world. And I'm gonna miss that a lot. I think when you're when you're grown and when you're living life out in the real world, you kind of have to craft that experience for yourself. Yeah. Which in a way I'm looking forward to, but yeah, it is it is time. It's time that I leave.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

And then come June, you're like working on a PhD application. Um, that's that's incredible. Um I'd love to maybe transition into our little rapid fire with Rashana segment. Oh my god, yes. Are you ready? Are you? Yes, I'm ready. All right. Um summers in Connecticut or summers in India?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Oh, summers in Connecticut. Summers in India are hot. Very, very hot.

unknown 33:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Connecticut is perfect. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

New England summers are amazing. Also, I would love like mosquitoes in India are the bane of my existence, but monsoons in India, elite. Like monsoons, like autumn. But it's raining, they're so beautiful. What? You've never thought that? In Sri Lanka, we have monsoon season as well, and I don't feel the same way about it. Maybe I'm just really emotionally attached to like the rain. I love I do love the rain. I do love the rain in India. I think it's so beautiful, especially in the South. South India? Okay. Stunning.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

I I I can maybe be convinced on that. Um all right. Yukon Huskies or Harvard Crimson.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Oh my god, Yukon Huskies. Unfortunately, I will always, I will always be a lifelong fan.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Very loyal.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Very loyal to Yukon. Yes. What about you? Yukon Huskies or Harvard Crimson.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Let's just say I was at Yukon for four years. Right, right. No, nothing. Yeah. Um, all right, favorite course you've taken so far?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Oh, that's a really good one. I feel like there are so many incredible courses, right? I'm sure I'm sure you would agree. There's so many amazing professors, and I would say I loved Rana Mitter's China and the World course. Um, it was incredible. He's also hilarious. Uh incredible professor. I love that course.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Okay. Interesting. And I'm sure maybe your experience there actually was super informative of like during your time in the class. You were able to probably bring so much sort of rich insights.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

It was amazing to be able to kind of cap my like one year in China, which is like fundamentally that's still very little time to spend in a country. So there was so much left to learn, and it was nice to have an academic experience kind of tying it all together.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Oh, lovely. It was a great course. Packaged in a little. Yeah, that's perfect. Um, okay. Nile, you and I all the time go out for little coffee chats. Yeah. Favorite cafe, Harvard Square.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Daily Provisions. It's a new cafe, but the crueler is incredible. I've put like six people onto the crawler. Did you try it when we when we went last year? Yeah, not yet. I'm gonna get Roshana too. Next time we go to Daily Provisions, they need to sponsor me. I love, I love that cafe.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Daily provisions.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Incredible, incredible cafe. The matcha's really good.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Yeah, okay, what's your what's your order?

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Oh, I always get a matcha with an extra scoop because I'm greedy and uh always get a crueler. Okay, love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Um three things you would want to learn outside of the classroom, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Oh my god, I am really excited to build a community that I that the school doesn't naturally give you. Yes. So I'm excited for that. Okay. I'm excited to be able to manage my own life and to feel that sense of agency. To feel like an adult. I'm excited for that. Adulting, okay. Adulting is gonna be great. And I also really love traveling to a new place and not knowing anybody there and you know, kind of navigating the experience of being alone in a new city. I really enjoy that. Okay. And I'm excited to have that again once I graduate.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Okay, so graduation is just yeah, it's exactly what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah, I'm it's time. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Um, okay, Nada, do you have a Harvard hot take? I feel like you do.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Like honestly, I guess my Harvard hot take is I don't love this. This is a very tame hot take. Now I'm really no, it needs to be hot. It's not it's a very lukewarm take because it's it's kind of lame. But I was gonna say the Smith Center, not my favorite student center. I think it could be that could be more seating, you know. I I don't I don't love the Smith Center. I would say that is my hot, actually a very lukewarm take.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Have you been up to the 10th floor? I have, I've been that you're not a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

It's beautiful, but because it's like the view of the night, but the view is really nice, but it is it is not my favorite building on campus.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

I know that um Goodwill hunting was filmed there though. So that kind of adds to it.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Do you have a Harvard hot take?

SPEAKER_01 37:34

I I do, but I I feel like I'd have to save. I don't want to take away from you on this movie. Um I but I feel like I do like the Smith Center for some reason. And maybe I just like the tenth floor in the movie.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Yeah, maybe I haven't explored enough. Maybe maybe that's what I'm doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Yeah. It's surprising how little maybe that's why I like it. It is very conveniently located. Yeah. But it's surprising how little time you spend outside of your grad school. I feel like I spent 80% of my time at HKS, and I love it. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Maybe that's it too. Maybe I haven't spent enough time in this center to really have an opinion on it. That might be it. Um, all right, Nabi. I you've we've covered so much ground, and you've shared so much of your story and and your experiences with us. I'd love to know what's one takeaway you would want the audience to leave with.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Oh my god. I would say I would tell the audience to like always try to seize every opportunity you have access to in an educational setting and beyond. I think there's so many opportunities that a lot of us count ourselves out for. But I think if you just try to seize it and do your best, the the positives from being part of a s of any university in the US is that there's so many opportunities that you are just within your reach and do not count yourself out and to always apply. To always like shoot your shot is probably my piece of advice for you.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

I think you're a really great example of that. Truly embodied that. Nibby, thank you very much for coming on Beyond Harvard.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.