This is a guest blog by Kathryn Hayward, BSc (Hons) Sports Therapy. She had an opportunity to travel to India with three other students from Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Nutrition courses.

My trip to India with Bournemouth University taught me a lot about the different cultures and education in other places of the world. It was amazing to experience and be a part of the very first international connection with Sri Ramachandra University. This international opportunity arose in BU’s Faculty of Health and Social Science where students from different degrees would be able to travel across to India to represent BU and experience education at Sri Ramachandra. I applied and was chosen from Sports Therapy to go across and spend a week observing life and lectures at the university.

This trip was aimed to join BU and Sri Ramachandra together to have international connections through education so students at both can learn and experience new ways of learning and researching. To be able to visit one of the top Sports Science Centres in India and learn first hand from the professors was incredible to be a part of, I saw everything from how to work the movement analysis cameras used on professional sports teams to the treatment at the outpatients Physiotherapy ward inside the working hospitals on the university campus.

Whilst in India I also got to experience international yoga day at Sri Ramachandra. Every year the whole university will hold a yoga session in the main hall which is open to everyone to help students relax and take a step back from their intense courses. This year I got to take part, doing this I learnt how much more awareness around mental health issues there are as the university yoga day was aimed to help students and raise awareness.

The trip has shown me that there are many different ways to teach and learn, I would like to implement my new knowledge to my current education by broadening my research and looking at what up and coming research is being done worldwide in the sports industry as so much new information is lost to the general public. It was great to be able to compare the sports science in India to the course I do at Bournemouth as they had a very different approach to teaching. It’s made me realise that the theory side of education is extremely important but also highlighted how lucky we are to be able to have opportunities to learn in a very hands on approach both inside and outside the university.

BU massively supported my international opportunity by creating this connection with Sri Ramachandra and allowing students to go across and experience a completely different way of life and education for the week. International connections are extremely important and I hope that more student exchanges will be carried out in the future with this new partnership.