The Mahindra United World College of India (MUWCI) , Village Paud, Pune.
A 175 acre campus surrounded by towering hills, MUWCI is a sort of pre-college where students from all over the world come to study in a wonderful, global environment.
The syllabus taught there is the IB, or the International Baccalaureate (a mouthful, I know).
The wonderful thing about MUWCI is the amount of freedom and choices they let you take. The subjects are not just narrowed down into certain streams of a specific set.
You have to take six subjects, one each from a group. The groups are:
1.Language(English, French, Spanish, Hindi, etc.)
2.Second language( More literature focused)
3.Individuals and societies(basically, humanities.)
4.Experimental Sciences(Bio, Phy, Chem, etc.)
5.Mathematics(There are different levels of maths that you can opt for too.)
6.The Arts(Music, theatre, dance, etc.)
Not to mention the people you'll be meeting there. People from more than 60 countries will be joining you there, and will also be your roommates in the two years to come.
You're expected to undertake in community engagement, which is a necessary part of academic life there. You'll also be hiking and trekking around the mountains and studying the biodiversity there. And since it's very hot there, with lots of shrubs and bushes, the surrounding areas catch fire very easily, and the students are assigned the task to put those fires out. Even if they are writing an exam, the students are excused and they are rushed out of the classrooms so that they can put on their safety gear and go to the rescue!
Sounds exciting, doesn't it?
Well that's my school/college. It's an exciting place to be with loads of opportunities.
But there's one more fact too.
In order to get into MUWCI, you must fill in an application and send it to them.
But it's not just your average, application that asks you for your birth date and merit certificates and grades. They ask you some soul-searching questions. And these questions change every year.
For eg:
Describe the philosophy of your life in not less than 20 words.
Find a picture or a poem or an anecdote that can describe your philosophy. Share it with us.
If you had five minutes face to face with a world leader, whom would you choose and why? What would you discuss with that person?
These are the questions that I had to answer. And they were challenging, but in the end, I had fun.
MUWCI is a place for people who like to be creative and free, for those who do not want to be restricted by the barriers in their society. It is a place where regular discussions on Global Affairs take place, a place where you will engage in community work daily, a place where you are expected to live like a citizen of the world.
The classes start by August, and you are given a month's time to try out the subjects that you like and can change them if you wish during that period.
This is their site:http://www.uwcmahindracollege.org/
I thank Sheela Ma'am and Anniamma Ma'am for giving me a lot of support to follow this path. They were the ones who had to write a recommendation for me and I'm pretty sure they did a good job!
I thank Fr. John for giving me a lot of opportunities to write and I thank him for introducing me before an entire audience as " a boy with lots of talent". It gave me a lot of confidence and will continue to do so in the future years of my life.
I also thank all of my teachers in Devagiri who taught me and passed me their knowledge with ingenuity and brilliance.
Finally, I thank my wonderful friends in Devagiri whom I will miss very much. Their pranks and jokes have tickled me a lot, and the time I spent with them is unforgettable.
If anyone has any doubts regarding the College and/or how to apply, please ask them in the comment box below, adn I will be very happy to help. More people need to know about MUWCI, because the time that you spend there will mould you into an all-rounded person.
Thank you for reading this post.
Here's a video of a day spent at MUWCI:
