Neha Tehmas Shares Her Study Abroad Story
At the Global Appreciation Dinner in April 2026, Neha Tehmas, a senior majoring in Public Health at Rutgers, shared her reflections on participating in the Global Health Practicum program in Tanzania in January 2024. Here are her remarks from the event.
I went to Tanzania on a Global Health Practicum in January of 2024, where I shadowed nurses and physicians in a variety of different hospital departments, got to know the nursing students at the University of Dodoma, executed nursing simulations with them, and helped train them in Stop The Bleed.
I came to Rutgers hearing so much about the Rutgers Global Study Abroad (RGSA) office from my cousin, who studied abroad in London and Ireland, so I knew from the very start of my Rutgers journey that it was something I really wanted to do. It was definitely a step out of my comfort zone, though, traveling with others whom I had just gotten to know for the first time. And then realizing that I was the youngest person on our program! Our ages spanned from 18 to 38. But I’m so glad that I did step out of my bubble, because 2024 Neha would have been really shocked at where I’m standing right now. She also would have been happy about the experience and all the ways that it’s shaped me since.
When I hit that “submit” button on the Study Abroad Application page, after doing my research about Tanzania and their health system, as well as the area I’d be visiting specifically, I thought I knew what I was getting into. I also had the burning desire to learn and see the world. So, check mark on all of those things! But it hit me once I got there that the most important lessons I would learn wouldn’t be from any of the books or articles I read about Tanzania or public health. They would be embedded in the culture, the people, the hospitality, and what I saw and observed there in the moment.
I think what surprised me the most was the difference in the way that we view life itself here in the U.S. and in Tanzania. Over here, I grew up in that fast-paced type of Jersey lifestyle with the mindset of “everything is due yesterday.” In Tanzania, things felt calmer. You could tell that everyone appreciated savoring moments and not rushing. I was even more surprised when I realized that Tanzanian healthcare professionals carried this perspective into the hospital, too.
But it really worked. Of course, the ER was just all running around and handling emergencies. But in every other case, I saw that nurses and doctors took their time talking to patients and especially children to calm their nerves and make them feel comfortable, asking them about their families, work, and school before mentioning the first clinical symptom. And that’s when I started to realize that the “work” isn’t rushed efficiency. The work is the relationships that you form, and the type of strong efficiency that you take a little time to build.
I then soaked in this lesson more deeply when, at the very end of my trip, I unfortunately ended up in the hospital. It was a long story of how I got sick the night before my last day in Tanzania. We were driving from Dodoma to Mount Kilimanjaro, enjoying hours of scenery through nature, and meeting the Maasai Tribes who taught us cultural dances.
But by 1:00 a.m. that night, I was only getting sicker. So my professor, Dr. Emilia Iwu, and all of our tour guides took me to the hospital, where the nurse and doctor got me settled and really took their time talking to me, checking on me every now and then, and joking around with me and all the other patients there. So, it felt really homey there. Our tour guides treated me like I was their favorite niece and were jokingly threatening the doctor to fix me by morning so that I could do the most jaw-dropping safari at the Serengeti on our last day there. Throughout that process, I felt so loved and cared for by people I didn’t even know before those two weeks. And sure, I could have chosen to be bummed about first looking at patients, and then becoming the patient who is looking up at doctors. But it only added to my experience there.
When I returned to the States, I genuinely came back feeling like a brand-new person. It was like waking up from the wildest dream of living a whole other life. Except it wasn’t a dream. I really did live the most adventurous and pivotal experience of my life in Tanzania. I needed to slow down and take time to figure out who I was after my experience studying abroad and how I’d take that forward with me during the rest of my time at Rutgers and beyond. That’s how transformative an experience it was. It felt like my degree had a heartbeat now, and that Rutgers, as a whole, was so much bigger than I had initially perceived it to be, with RGSA helping students take the Rutgers spirit to every corner of the world.
I went through daily life so differently, too, learning to stop running through life at full speed 24/7. I learned that slowing down, savoring things, and taking the time to build something great is what matters more. Stepping out of my comfort zone gave me the confidence that I needed to chase other dreams and goals that I had coming into Rutgers, like becoming an Orientation Leader at the International Student Orientation, where I had the honor of being part of the team that welcomed over 7000 new students to Rutgers-New Brunswick alone. I also wanted to reconnect with the Study Abroad office and got the chance to become a Global Ambassador so that I could help others unlock the experience of becoming a global citizen. I had the pleasure of giving back to RGSA by serving as the Co-Event Coordinator for our group of Global Ambassadors, so that I could help execute the types of events that I know that 2024 Neha and so many others like her needed to get their push to study abroad. And now, my new perspective and the lessons I brought back with me are the key to unlocking my new adventure of studying at Columbia University to get my Master’s in Health Administration in the fall.
So, it’s been a long journey, but such an incredibly rewarding one. I want to thank RGSA, as a whole, for my experience because none of it would have been possible without every single person there who works hard to make my program and every other program offered by Rutgers a reality. I want to give a special thanks to my professor and program director, Dr. Iwu for such an amazing trip and for taking me to the hospital at 1:00 am. When I got out of the hospital, she told me that she’d never forget me because of that, and to this day I’m still so sorry for the trouble! A huge thank you to Austin Goss, Study Abroad Advisor and Program Coordinator for allowing me to be a Global Ambassador and Co-Event Coordinator. And a big thank you to the hosts of this wonderful event for creating this opportunity to celebrate something so beautiful.
Here’s the last message I’ll leave you with: We run through life so fast and try to plan every moment, but we end up learning the most when we slow down sometimes and take on life and all its unexpected aspects head on, without hesitation.
Learn more about study abroad opportunities here at Rutgers.
