Ask mathematics major Tracy Backes ‘08 about her experiences in India and she instantly lights up. She says she’d go back in a heartbeat.

In less than a year and a half, she visited the country twice—taking in a variety of different lessons and experiences, including being blessed by Lakshmi, the temple elephant, in the town of Hampi (shown at right).

“The pace of life is so different in India,” says Backes, who is from Wisconsin. “There are so many people and always so much going on. The colors are so vibrant and the country has such a rich history.”

Her first Indian experience spanned nearly four months in the fall of 2006, when she participated in an anthropology study abroad program in Madurai—a small, sleepy, conservative town.

“I decided to study abroad in a place that I wouldn’t likely go to otherwise,” says Backes, who lived in Italy during middle school while her mother worked with U.S. Department of Defense schools, and traveled to Brazil in 2004. “I had always been intrigued by India and its culture.”

For the first two months, Backes studied anthropology, Indian culture and politics, and Tamil—one of India’s dialects dating back 2,000 years. She then worked on a research project that focused on disability in the region and availability of services.

“I found that there is a lot of corruption in the region, but many improvements have been made for the disabled in the last 10 years,” she explains.

Upon returning from India and getting back into the swing of things on campus, Backes, who also speaks Spanish and is learning Arabic, learned of a 10-week internship opportunity with Microsoft in Bangalore, India, and immediately signed up. The stint began a few months later in June 2007.

“I had no idea when I’d be able to go back to India and was amazed that this opportunity came up so soon after I had returned,” says Backes, who plans to works for a couple of years after graduation before pursuing a doctoral degree in applied mathematics or operations research.

At Microsoft, she worked with a multilingual systems group developing a game concept.

Studying abroad, especially living with a host family, is something that Backes—pictured at left with host mother, host sister and host niece—recommends to everyone.

“It’s a great experience that makes you see things differently,” she says. “You walk away more mature and confident.”

Like Backes, one might also learn some life lessons as well.

“Although I didn’t see extreme poverty in India, I definitely saw how the other half lives,” she says. “It made me think about what I take for granted here, which is something you see more clearly as a foreigner in another country.”