My Freshman Year: May 3, 2010

In chapters three and four, Nathan discussed two topics on every college student's mind: diversity and foreign exchange students. Our group was very surprised when Nathan discussed some of the community topics of the third chapter because of how similar it is to our experience in the dorms. It seems like everybody on my floor has his or her own little group of friends and just like Nathan says, “ there [are] few open invitations” to hang out with them (Nathan 55). When people go to get something to eat they don’t knock on everybody’s door, they only check with their circle of friends. RA’s try to plan meetings and activities, and often times residents will not show up, either because they have something more important to do or they do not want to do something without their circle of friends. Another part in Chapter three that caught our attention was the fact that “4 of 489 white males […] ate with (only) males of a different ethnicity” (64). We also have noticed that, while there is not as much diversity at Eau Claire as there is at American University, there tends to be very few groups of mixed ethnicity eating at the cafeteria. This could be for a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons is probably because people tend to hang out with people of similar interests to them. Since, when people go to eat they only invite their close group of friends, they may not think to ask a person who is not in their circle of close friends. The last thing we have noticed is that just like Nathan says; there are very few people of minorities eating in the cafeteria in general. I don’t know if it is because they are going out to eat or afraid of having to eat along in front of a group of people, but it is not very common to see someone of a separate ethnicity than you when you eat a meal at the cafeteria. It is too bad, because they are missing out on all of the fun of conversing with friends and eating in a decent environment.

Throughout the book Rebekah has been an outcast due to her age and because of this she is drawn to other “outsiders, and vice versa... Thus, the transfer student on my hall became a friend”. Since she spends a lot of time with them she is given a chance to interview them and see how they feel about their American college experience. The foreign exchange students commented on many things about college life here in America. The first issue that was brought up was the issue of American students. Foreign exchange students say that Americans are friendly, but only want surface level friendships they don’t try to have real friendships or relationships with the foreign exchange students. As harsh as this si our group agrees with Nathan. We also agree with Nathan on other issues she observed that were brought to her attention by the foreign exchange students. The fact that if you’re not involved in anything at Eau Claire it is much harder to meet people and make new friends. We also agree with the fact that some students are disrespectful to professors and some classes, mainly 100 level classes, are easy cheesy!