When President Barack Obama described Rutgers University in his convocation address May 15 as the “intellectual melting pot where ideas and cultures flow together”, nobody perhaps could agree more with the President than Varun Arvind, a first generation immigrant from India.
Arvind, who was among the top 178 honorees in the graduating class of 2016, said that President Obama was absolutely correct because there is such great diversity at Rutgers, both culturally and intellectually. “I think this gives students a perspective on how their classes not only impact New Jersey but the U.S. and the world,” Arvind said reacting to Obama’s 20-minutes-speech, the first by a sitting president at Rutgers graduation.
About 50,000 people, including more than 10,000 students and their friends and families along with faculty members listened to Obama’s address at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey as he spoke about the diversity in Rutgers which is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year.
“Here in New Brunswick, you can debate philosophy with a classmate from South Asia in one class, and then strike up a conversation on the EE Bus with a first-generation Latina student from Jersey City…,” the President said amid thunderous applause.
Many faces in the audience brightened up at the mention of South Asians. Seated among the audience were 23 South Asians, most of them Indian-Americans, who were among 178 students handpicked by the university from among nearly 8,000 undergraduates for achievement in the classroom, in laboratories and in the arts and were inducted into the Matthew Leydt Society, a top honor.
“Rutgers has provided me with countless opportunities that have shaped me and helped me to achieve what I have. Through Rutgers, I have had the chance to begin researching and spend two summers at CERN. Rutgers has given me opportunities and challenges that have honed my interests onto particular sets of problems that I wish to pursue in graduate school,” Aditya Parikh, one of the MSL inductees, along with Arvind and other students, said.
The State University of New Jersey boasts more than 67,000 students and the student population represents all 50 states and more than 115 countries. A university official noted that Rutgers receives more than 48,000 undergraduate admissions applications each year. “We seek to admit a class that is both academically well-prepared and that represents a diversity of backgrounds and experiences,” the official said.
“Rutgers takes great pride in its tradition of promoting a diverse campus community that offers students intellectual and cultural interactions that enrich their educational experience and prepares them to be global citizens. More than half of our total student population is non-white,” the official added.
Parikh, who heads to Harvard University this fall to pursue a doctorate in theoretical high-energy physics, said his exposure to new ideas has allowed him to learn more about the members of the community around him. “I believe that the reason many Indian students attend Rutgers is that it provides a world class education,” he added.
For Arvind, who will be attending Mount Sinai’s MD/PhD MSTP in New York City, diversity is very important. “I chose mainly to go to Mount Sinai, deep in N.Y.C. because I knew from my time at Rutgers diversity is so important to me that I want to continue my education in an area that had similar diversity,” he said in response to a question.
Both Parikh and Arvind were among four Rutgers students who won last year the prestigious Goldwater Scholarships that are designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering.
Arvind said that his parents were immigrants from India and that in most institutions in the U.S. being first generation is somewhat of an abnormality, something really unique and the diversity at Rutgers not just among students but also the faculty has been very helpful despite being a first generation Indian-American.
“Many of my classmates were, and not just from India but from many other countries as well. And I think because of this, students on the whole relate to each other much better and we have a much better connection to a more globalized world. I think this is one of the biggest reasons as to why so many first generation students, not only Indian-Americans, come to Rutgers,” he said in response to a question.
Referring to Rutgers In his speech Obama said that America converges here. “And in so many ways, the history of Rutgers mirrors the evolution of America — the course by which we became bigger, stronger, and richer and more dynamic, and a more inclusive nation,” said.
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