Indian students at Harvard navigate uncertainties

Indian students at Harvard say they are navigating a “rollercoaster” of uncertainty and anxiety amid the Trump administration's relentless battle against the university while also dealing with a dearth of job opportunities

New York: Indian students at Harvard say they are navigating a “rollercoaster” of uncertainty and anxiety amid the Trump administration‘s relentless battle against the university while also dealing with a dearth of job opportunities.

“It’s just been a time of not quite knowing what to do, whether we should make our moves back home, or whether we should try and figure something out here,” an Indian student, who graduated last month from the Harvard Kennedy School, said, not wishing to be identified.

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Indian students at Harvard, speaking to PTI on condition of anonymity, shared their concerns and experiences of the last few months during which the prestigious university has seen relentless attacks by the Trump administration.

The administration’s actions include a freeze of USD 2.2 billion in grants, revocation of the university’s eligibility to enrol international students and suspension of entry of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programmes at Harvard.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that Harvard’s leadership has created an “unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment.”

US President Donald Trump, in a proclamation last week, said Harvard had refused recent requests of the DHS for information about foreign students’ “known illegal activity,” “known dangerous and violent activity,” “known threats to other students or university personnel,” and other related data.

Another Indian student, who graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design after completing a two-year course, said students come to American institutions with plans of finishing their studies and then finding jobs to work for a few years in the US.

But she described the situation of the past few months as being a “rollercoaster.” “With all the uncertainty, I can say that a lot of people who are hiring were generally hesitant of international students, and maybe the Harvard tag helped earlier, but that’s not the same right now at this particular moment,” she said.

The student from Harvard Kennedy School pointed out that she is in a “desperate job search” at the moment, noting how difficult it is to get a job in the current environment. “Employers have just stopped entertaining any international students, forget international students from Harvard, because our visa statuses are so volatile that who would want to employ us right now.”

She said she doesn’t know whether she will be going back to India, staying back or heading to a different country altogether. “That uncertainty is a lot in a country like America where you’re paying” huge amounts of money in rent. She added that she thinks this is a short-term turbulence and things will settle down in the future.

“But while we’re caught in the crossfire, I think it’s been difficult to plan, and so it’s stressful for sure.” The students also pointed out that funding cuts initiated by the Trump administration are impacting jobs in the policy space, climate change, healthcare and public health sectors.