CASI Student Blog

Hi everyone!

My name is Nitin Seshadri, and I will be an intern at Aravind Eye Care System in Madurai this summer. I’m a rising senior from Somers, New York majoring in Neuroscience with minors in Health Care Management and Chemistry.

With my flight to Delhi just one day away, I am eagerly packing my bags and getting ready for ten amazing weeks.

What I’m excited about
Broadly, I am most excited about visiting Madurai, my project at Aravind, and getting to know my fellow interns.

I am particularly interested in visiting the Madana Gopala Temple. Two fun facts about this temple: One, my mom was born in Madurai, and the house she lived her first few years in (before her family moved to Delhi) was right next door. Naturally, she was extremely excited for me when I said that I would be traveling to Madurai for my internship! Two, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s “Pillared Temple Hall” exhibit originates from here. I got to see the exhibit last year, so I am excited to see the rest of the temple when I get to Madurai!

Of course, I’m looking forward to the project I will be pursuing at Aravind. I applied to the CASI-Aravind internship to learn more about healthcare delivery outside the United States, and it will be a great opportunity for me to learn about medical practices and challenges in India and to understand the impact of Aravind’s services. I hope to add to my knowledge about healthcare delivery in the U.S. that I’ve learned from my healthcare management classes and other experiences, while also improving the experience for the people that Aravind serves.

I also can’t wait to get to know my fellow interns. Whether through traveling to new places on the weekend, working together at Aravind, or simply spending time as a group, I think that we will all form strong connections over the course of the summer.

What I hope to get out of this summer
First and foremost, I hope to gain a deeper appreciation for Aravind’s healthcare delivery system. I’ve previously heard it described as the “McDonald’s of health care” in the sense that Aravind has been able to serve a large patient population at high quality and low cost. As a pre-medical student, I want to take what I will learn into medical school and into my professional career to make healthcare more affordable and improve healthcare access, especially for those who are underserved or marginalized.

Second, I want to learn more about India and Indian culture. This will my third time visiting India, but the first time I will be on my own and old enough to truly immerse myself in the surroundings. I previously visited my grandparents some years ago, and before that when I was a year old. I am ready for new experiences this time around!

Third, I want to visit new locations, try new foods, and keep myself active. I will be in Madurai for ten weeks, and I’m hoping that I can do at least one of these things every week. (Perhaps a topic for a future blog post?)

Concluding notes
I want to end by saying that these are just my expectations for what will happen over the next three months. It’s equally possible that I will discover something that I did not expect, learn something that I never thought I would, or form a lasting connection with someone who I wouldn’t otherwise have met. I’ll be posting more about my experiences over the summer, so stay tuned!

I can’t believe it’s two days to go to India!

Hi everyone, welcome to my blog post! I am Hana Matsuda, 2024 Aravinder.

In this article I want to introduce myself, write about why I came to go to India/ Aravind, and things that I am looking forward to doing over the summer.

“Basic Self-Introduction”

My name is Hana Matsuda, and I am a rising senior (‘25) studying bioengineering. I was born and grew up in the Tokyo area, Japan, until I came to Penn.

I love swimming, mountain climbing, and just randomly taking a walk – yes, I love outdoor activities and I feel sick when I need to stay indoors for a whole day.

But I enjoy indoor hobbies like Japanese calligraphy and crocheting, for a rainy day.

Fun fact: I have an extrastellar friend (Photo 1-1).

Photo 1-1: Me with my extrastellar friend on a bench in Tokyo, Japan.

Why Go to Aravind?

Every time I say “I’m going to south India this summer for an internship”, most people react by saying “Whaaat?” or “WHY?”.

The only exceptions are my teammates in the bioengineering lab group and my family who simply said “oh that’s cool, enjoy” – and that’s why I love them.

So, why did I decide to go to Aravind?

For the first two years in college, I was thinking of pursuing a PhD. So, last summer (summer of 2023), I worked full-time on cell engineering research (Photo 1-2).

Photo 1-2: Poster presentation for the cell engineering research I have done in summer 2023.

Interestingly, when the summer ended, I was convinced that I am more interested in healthcare management or healthcare consulting rather than a PhD – I was strongly affected by my PhD student mentor, who just got a job as a consultant.

I was at a loss what to do during the summer until I accidentally saw “internship in India” in an email in December, 2023. Somehow, it stuck with me, and when I was in Rome, Florence, and Naples for a vacation I kept thinking about it from time to time.

On January 18th, 2024, I entered a building I have never entered before to visit the CASI office for the internship fair. Learning that I am a bioengineering major, people at CASI recommended going to Aravind. After getting back to my dorm, I read blogs of past interns and a book “Infinite Vision” to learn more about Aravind (Photo 1-3).

Photo 1-3: The book “Infinite Vision”, which explains history and philosophy behind the Aravind Eye Care System. Available at the university library.

Realizing that Aravind would be a perfect place to work on healthcare management and potentially biotechnology, I submitted the application. And here I am, ready to go to India in two days.

To sum, I really think it was a sequence of accidents that brought me here. If my PhD mentor was not a consultant, and if I was not reading carefully enough that one email, I would not have gotten this internship opportunity. It kind of blows my mind.

Goals for the Summer

Since we’ll decide on which project to work on at Aravind, I cannot write my goals specific to my project. However, I have three major goals for the summer.

Goal #1 is to learn to apply engineering skills and mindsets that I have developed so to solve real world healthcare problems.

If what I have done so far was engineering in a controlled, protected, resource-rich environment, the summer at Aravind will be my first opportunity to exercise engineering in the real world.

I cannot wait to learn the unmet needs at Aravind, build up the project plan, and work on it. It would be great if I can bring a meaningful impact to Aravind along the way.

Goal #2 is to gain a better understanding about myself by living and working in a very different environment than I am used to.

Coming to the US as an international student, my biggest challenge was to build new relationships, learn how to present myself, and to figure out my role in a very different culture.

Although it was actually a huge struggle, in retrospect I’m glad that I went through it because I was constantly tested on what I truly prioritize, and got to know about myself better.

I am excited to interact with supervisors, local people, and fellow Penn students in yet another environment, struggle again, and be more conscious about myself.

Goal #3 is to explore architecture and nature in south India.

Madurai, where I will be living for 10 weeks, is an old city with so many beautiful temples! I’ve got to explore them. Also, I am really hoping that I can do actual mountain climbing for the first time in three years (Philly is too flat)!

Last but not least

I am thankful for everybody who made it possible for me to join the internship at Aravind this summer. Yes, Consulate General of India, I am thankful for you too, although some minor glitches on your website made my visa application process significantly harder than it was supposed to be.