I moved to UCA from a small town in Arkansas. My graduating class was a HUGE 74 people. My friend who lives only thirty minutes away in a “bigger” town frequently makes fun of my little town. She says, “I don’t stop when I drive through, because I fear I will end up in a situation like the movie Deliverance.” So, it is needless to say we didn’t have much diversity. I had a hard time working through the culture shock of moving to UCA. The population here is not all “white-back-woods-rednecks”.
To some this is going to sound ridiculous, but it is the sad truth. I had never seen a black person outside of the television before moving to UCA. I personally am very interested in people who are different than myself, but terrified of offending people by asking what may seem to be “stupid” or “racist” questions. So, after two semesters of taking classes with and becoming friends with a black girl was I finally able to say, “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but will you tell me about your hair? It always looks so perfect and I have always wanted to know how. I only hear bits of conversations and what I hear on T.V. and I am confused and intrigued.”
She laughed, “Girl, what do you want to know?”
I smiled, “Everything you want to tell me, I know nothing.”
Besides being a place to meet new cultures from here in America. There are people from all over the world, places I knew and places I have never heard of. Have you heard of Guinea-Bissau? I have now met two people from there.
One of my RAs (meaning Resident Assistant, not to be confused with “RA”s a noise Lady Ga-Ga uses as lyric fillers) is from Rwanda. His name is Robert. Living with Robert and others who come from such different cultures has been eye opening. He has told me some of his ideas and goals in life. He has an amazing passion to help people back home, a passion that is lost where I come from. Most of the people “back home” for me just want to leave town or be able to survive on minimum wage at the factory raising their children. Not often do they think about helping improve the town.
Living in EDGE has provided me with an even bigger insight than, I can assume (maybe I am true or maybe I am just very proud of my new home), any other Res’ College can offer. EDGE stands for Educating for Global Engagement. This means most of the classes offered in the dorm classroom are geared toward global awareness. What EDGE stands for also explains why there are several exchange students living in the dorm.
While there are many amazing facts to learn from exchange students, I am going to tell you one that is less important on a global stand point, but very interesting in my opinion. I was talking with one of the Chinese exchange students and she told me that she will not eat the cookies in the cafeteria. I asked her why, because I personally think the cookies in the caf’ are the best thing they serve. She then explained to me that where she is from cookies are all crunchy. The fact the caf’ cookies are soft and chewy made her believe they were expired.
To wrap it up, UCA has allowed me to become a cultured being. Not only is there a huge diversity on campus, but within my beautiful Res’ College home there is enough culture to learn more about the world than my high school geography class could have ever taught me.
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