Bharat Prabakaran

Engineering Futures Scholar

Bharath Prabakaran, a computer science major from India, said he heard about Arizona State University through an organization that promotes the United States education system in India and had heard that ASU was a good college that a lot of international students attend. 

After getting the best scholarships offered to him from ASU compared to the other international schools he applied to, it was a no-brainer for him to enroll. The more he learned about the computer science field from his father, who is a software engineer, the more he was able to prepare himself for what he was signing up for choosing this career path.

Growing up he lived in California until the third grade, but then moved to India up until the Fall of 2019 to when he began attending the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. Since starting school, he’s been involved in the Robotics Club and has shown interest in joining the sunhacks, which brings together students around learning to code. 

Transitioning from high school to college was very different for him because he said the school structure is completely different in India. 

He said that in India, students don’t travel to different rooms for different subjects. “Even that fundamental thing is different.”

Instead, students would stay in the same room and different teachers specific to different subjects would come to them.

He had to adapt to the concept of homework again when he came to college because his high school stopped giving students homework and replaced it with exams. The transition wasn’t difficult for him, but he said it took time to get used to.

His favorite part of school is the dining hall food offered on campus and the freedom that comes with college.  

“I like the freedom I get over here. You can go to classes and you can come back and do whatever you want in your free-time.”

By Laura Stack, Science and Technology Writer, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering
February 20, 2020