Newcomb to Indonesia

May 23, 2024

This summer, Adhithi Sreenivasan will be heading to Malang, Indonesia, as a part of the Critical Language Scholarship program, which the US Department of State sponsors. The mission of CLS is to empower US students with proficiency in a critical language by sending them to a country in which it is spoken in order to learn in an immersive environment. The program is also supplemented with extracurricular activities and excursions to expand cultural knowledge. Adhithi chose Indonesian because she hopes to become a physician specializing in global health and work worldwide. She is interested in working in Southeast Asia and Indonesia one day to treat tropical and infectious diseases. The country of Indonesia also has historical and cultural connections to her country of ancestry, India, which also interested her. 

While in Malang, Adhithi will be studying at Universitas Negeri Malang, a national institution of higher education in Indonesia, and taking intensive language classes. Additionally, she will engage in extracurricular cultural activities such as playing traditional instruments, learning folk music, and participating in arts and crafts native to the country. She hopes to gain greater proficiency in Indonesian by the end of her summer and learn as much as possible about the rich culture. 

Adhithi Sreenivasan is a rising junior and a Newcomb Scholar majoring in Neuroscience and minoring in Spanish. On-campus, she is involved in the Tulane International Society, TAMWA, the School of Science & Engineering Student Government, POCappella, and participates in research at the Tulane School of Medicine. She one day hopes to work in the healthcare field and support language accessibility within this area.