Some students spend a quarter or two learning what it’s like to be a student abroad. Medill undergraduates also have the opportunity to experience their future profession with a foreign flair as part of the Teaching Media program. Medill junior Dan Pieringer spent nine weeks working for the Indian Express in Dehli, India, and shares his tales of old-school autos, obsessions with American culture and the difficulty in getting a cup of tea.

PLAY: Why did you go to India for your TM?

Dan Pieringer: I just wanted to do something different. There are a lot of options, but I don’t see why anyone would opt to go to Milwaukee as opposed to going to India.

PLAY: What was a typical day for you in India?

DP: There’s no such thing as a typical day in India. The work day doesn’t start until late, so you get a fair amount of sleep. You wake up and take an auto rickshaw to work, and auto rickshaws are like covered go carts — little green-and-yellow automobiles. I’m quite clearly white, so I got ripped off constantly. Sometimes I worked in the office editing and doing desk work. Some days they would send me off to do stories in the field, which is excellent because that’s why you go to India — to get out there, not to sit in the office. And you go home and there’s a social scene — there is your workday and your weekend. We had time to actually go out and experience things.

PLAY: What are the major differences between Indian media and American media?

DP: It depends on where you are in India. A lot of outlets have different standards. The Indian press is known for making up quotes for very sensational journalism, with a lot of celebrity-based focus and less of the straight news. I was at the Indian Express, which is known to be one of the Indian outlets with the most integrity, so I didn’t encounter a lot of those major style discrepancies. But just the writing for an Indian magazine and newspaper — I did both — it’s noticeably different, but not completely different. I got used to it.

PLAY: Could you give an example of those differences?

DP: Mainly along the lines of sentence construction and grammar, word usage, diction — that kind of thing. It’s not the way you are used to speaking or writing. Then there’s also the British spelling, because India was a British colony, so they spell color with a ‘u’ in it. I could never do that.

PLAY: Were you viewed differently in the newsroom because you were an American?

DP: I liked my workplace. I liked the people there a lot. But in India almost in every office there are people who walk around with trays of tea, giving it out to the employees. Not once did I get a cup of tea. I was working six days a week, nine hours a day or something, for nine weeks, and I just wanted some damn tea. That’s all I wanted. He just ignored me because I was white. And it’s a reality that you come to expect in India, but you never get used to not getting tea. Other than that it was a fair workplace.

PLAY: How did your Indian colleagues view the American media?

DP: There seems to be a fascination over there — not just with American media, but with America in general. American news dominates the Indian media. They do all types of stories on American politics and celebrity culture. The Oscars were on while I was over there, and that was a huge story in India. So there’s a lot of focus on America.

PLAY: How has it been being back?

DP: There was definitely an adjustment period. Most Americans, when they go to India, expect to get sick; they call it “Delhi Belly” because you’re not used to the food there. But I got sicker when I came back to American food than I ever did in Delhi. I went straight from O’Hare Airport to Chili’s and ate until I couldn’t sit up straight, which wasn’t a good idea in retrospect. When I got back, I definitely had to adjust, and I still can’t eat dairy.

PLAY: What about getting adjusted to campus?

DP: Get back to me when I have papers due. Seriously, it’s a relief to be back in a routine and where things are familiar to me. It is a bit of adjustment going back to class and being in cooler weather. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.

PLAY: Would you consider going back to India to work?

DP: I would definitely consider it, but I would want to have experience at an American media outlet before going back. But it was definitely an experience I won’t forget. And I can see myself going back, if not for work then for pleasure.

— Niema Jordan