{"id":1552,"date":"2024-05-06T11:43:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T08:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lnshah.com\/purdue\/?page_id=1552"},"modified":"2024-09-21T11:41:05","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T08:41:05","slug":"about-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lnshah.com\/purdue\/about-me\/","title":{"rendered":"About Me & FAQs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hi! I am Bhavin Shah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I am a third generation Tanzanian of Indian origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in your shoes in early 2023. My son got admitted to Purdue University as a First Year Engineering student. With no local support (there were only 2 Tanzanians at Purdue at undergraduate level the year before!), we were, probably as you are now, a bit overwhelmed with what to do next! So I set out, researching for his Big Move!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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After countless sleepless nights spent deep-diving on the internet, I gradually pieced together the information that prepared and launched him successfully towards his first year at Purdue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The WOW welcome book from Purdue was a starting point but one I found barely scratched the surface for an international freshman and their families. So I scoured the internet, going down rabbit holes of hyperlinks. I jumped from official US immigration and customs sites to those of Purdue and hundreds of others. I shot off numerous emails to Purdue admissions, ISS and his faculty to get answers to our queries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Joining Reddit, I discovered a community of Purdue students who, as they discussed their daily issues and FAQs, had left behind a trove of information we could use. The relevant information is all there- somewhere on some site or discussion forum if you spend the time to sort out the nuggets from the irrelevant trivial stuff. But it needed to be collated, and updated so as to be coherent. Slowly, I started making sense of it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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After a few months of going it alone, I got to know of, and joined a WhatsApp group of over 350 parents of freshmen Boilermakers of Indian origin. There I found many parents in the same boat I was in. It was an awesome resource for sharing and pretty soon, I was made an Admin- with peers leaning on me to have ready answers for most FAQs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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