Keep in mind, Chloe's a degree student.
I don't know if you'll be able to fully appreciate it, but I'm going to post it anyway because I love it.
This is an article printed in Richmond's "paper" (not the real one, but just stapled oversized papers) last week. There's a big problem on our campus with degree students and abroads trying to get along. It's been an issue since the day we moved in - they give off an "I'm better than you" kind of vibe.
There's so much to say about the article that I'm not even going to get that into it right now. As soon as I can get a copy of the response Brittainy wrote, I'll try to post it so you have an idea of our side of the story. For now, you'll just have to understand that there's a bit of tension around here.
Degrees of Separation by Sophia Flint
Richmond is a school that boasts “Unity in Diversity”. However, that diversity is no where to be seen on the Kensington Campus where the American study-abroads immensely out-number the on-campus student body; and most will agree that there is definitely no unity between the study-abroads and the degree students. To the degree students it appears as if all that “Unity in Diversity” talk at Richmond Hill was propaganda for the War of US vs. THEM: the Richmond Jihad, the unending and justifiable struggle against the infidel that has inundated our common room with The OC and classrooms with questions like: “What language do they speak in Greece?” and “Is Bolivia part of the EU?”
Is it true that as a whole degree students, really, truly hate study-abroads? In a word: yes. If anything, it’s a Richmond tradition and begs further inspection into the question of “why”. Is it that they as a whole are the embodiments that characterise greater frustrations? Is it the oblivious nature that they as a collective whole seem to have? Is it envy? Most study-abroads would agree with this point, remarking how truly sad we are as not to come from the country that has produced Dr. Phil and TacoBell. Admittedly, a lot of it is envy; not for this reason, but envy because we are feeling as the long-suffering partner who has been tossed aside for a more advantageous mistress by our school.
This separation of study-abroad vs. degree students, often called the “Great Divide”, does not occur until one gets to Kensington. At this academic level, when you have left the cloister of Richmond Hill for Kensington, most degree students have fled the nest for greener pastures or at least better flats and have no need to deal with the study-abroads on a daily basis. However, for us tragic few who remain on campus, we have become painfully aware that the Richmond we knew and loved is under occupation and we have no allies to assist us or even help us address this crisis. Instead, at Kensington we are saddled with an absentee University President, an inept SGA, and various staff who have little to no on-campus presence.
Not realising or not understanding the severity of the problem due to their absence, the administration has done nothing to curb our troubles and in fact fuels it by things like the AIFS Pizza/Beer Party, where we degree students are sat like beggars on the sidelines, banished from our own common room. Adding to the envy-generated hostility, the AIFS Program affords the study-abroad an on-site Study Abroad Coordinator, free rail passes, an AIFS recruitment officer and the services of John O’Connell and Fay Poosti to see them through. As a degree student, my accumulated tuition fees of nearly US$100,000 has neither afforded mean on-site Career Counselor or a seat in Alex Seago’s SSC310 class which is a “Study-Abroad Only”. This is, however, only the tip of the iceberg.
A graduating senior once said that the main problem they had about study-abroads was that “...they take away the resources, complain about how London isn’t America, contribute nothing and then they leave. This is not a way to establish a good reputation for Richmond.” Indeed, to the degree students, the study-abroads are seen as visitors to a place that is “ours”, and as guests, they should conform to a degree of politeness and respect, or as much respect as a group of twenty-somethings can manage to observe. However, year after year we seem to be saddled with an overwhelming number of American youth suffering from generational Middle Class Anxiety who treat Richmond as the latest Sigma-Phi frat house and London like a trip to the Jersey Shore.
Some of our hostilities stem from their bad manners, impoliteness and general disrespect: disrespect for their neighbours, our professors and our school. As if they do not realise that to many degree students Richmond is more than our home school, it is our home. Richmond works a bit like the Island of Misfit Toys: many have been displaced due to war or occupation and others, finding a sense of identity elusive, come from multinational backgrounds; so we find unity here with people from similar backgrounds. Thus, part of the hostility comes from a failure to find a common ground between the typical degree student, who has a Persian Mother, a Latvian Father and grew up in Angola, and the average study-abroad, who comes from 12 generations of Bostonians and who doesn’t know where Angola is.
Another issue of envy and respect is the notion that for many of us academics are not a matter of pass/fail. There is a perception that the study-abroad does not nor is expected to work as hard as we do. This is evident by the weekday madness that can be heard at any given night of the week. As crazy as it sounds, degree students need to study and get to sleep so we can get to our 9:00a.m. classes on a Friday morning. It is disrespectful and a little disconcerting to be awakened out of your sleep at 3:00a.m. with an angry neighbour shouting, “I’m going to come up there and rape you” to the study-abroads you share a floor with. Also distracting are the Ambassador House riots, as suffered through last semester, the hallway football games and general neighbours having a beer party or coming home late drunk. This is coupled with general signs of disrespect to our school, such as last semester’s unsettling vandalism of the Atlantic House showers and this semester’s needless destruction of the Ambassador House’s soda machine. Part of it is the price you pay when you live on campus: upon the fifth occasion, I was referred to as a “DS” and was subsequently made to pay £20 because a visiting degree student took a fire sticker off the Ambassador House’s wall - I feel a little disrespected.
As easy targets, degree students also hold study-abroads responsible for the frustrations of Richmond’s campus life. The housing crisis of Spring 2003, overcrowded classrooms and canteen, the loud conversations about American football scores and credit card limits that disrupt work in the computer labs, wearing pyjamas to class, the drunken chants when stumbling home from the latest pilgrimage to The Sports Cafe, The Great 12 November 2004 Riot at Ambassador House, the sea of North Face jackets, writing “Yankee’s Suck” our “our” common room’s Italian leather couches and, most critically, taking up valuable computers to hold three simultaneous MSN internet conversations and make travel plans while degree students stand waiting to finish term papers.
Most of my gripes come from the so-called “oblivious Americans.” I speak of course about the neighbour who gets a phone call at 2:30a.m. and so goes out into the hall as not to disturb her roommate, and carries a conversation in the hall unaware that every door in the hall is startled out of their sleep due to the acoustics of her conversation, or the person walking around in the cafeteria who did not think it impolite to wear a jumper promoting the Israeli Armed Forces in a school that has a strong Muslim presence. And before that there was a group of girls who asked a common room full of twenty football fanatics if they could relocate to a pub, so they could watch The OC. I am often surprised by the patience of my fellow degree students, who long suffering, meet this behavior with a well tempered sigh, or roll of the eyes, and well timed quips like “Who are you?” and “What part of Jersey are you from?”
Indeed, the very battleground of the degree student vs. the study-abroad has become the lower levels of Atlantic and Ambassador House. The study-abroads have become “bad guest” and the degree students, as their “host”, have foregone geniality and have become increasingly more hostile. The fragmentation has fractured so far as to have degree students alienated from the motto of “Unity in Diversity” and often use about totalitarian isolation from the study-abroads, such as housing quarters, laundry facilities, and computer labs.
We recognise that study-abroads are a necessary evil, similar to ants and roaches. They provide necessary economic funds to Richmond, bringing in an estimated US$5million through the Richmond AIFS program alone. However like ants and roaches, they as a collective whole are annoying, and everywhere.
Is every study-abroad hated? No, of course not. The degree student, once he or she deals with them on a personal level, gains comrades, study-buddies and even friends. However, the growing resentment between the degree students and the study-abroads often does not allow for this. Study-abroads are the embodiment of envy and frustration over a university that, in previous years despite an economic crunch, allowed them to visit despite not having the accommodation to house them, provided them with adequate computer access, a place to sit at dinner and in class. However, that which it does extend to the visiting students it does not provide to its own, which is unacceptable at what will now be US$32,000 a year.
All study-abroads are paying for the crimes of their predecessors, our discontent with our own school, and envy. Thus, they are vilified and are unfairly seen by degree students as perpetuating a stigma as a group of rude, lazy, impolite, boorish, loud, disrespectful elitists. Strangely enough for these reasons, our treatment of them has ironically branded us the impolite, boorish, loud, disrespectful elitists. Thus, to my fellow ex-patriots, internationals and occasional Canadians: it’s not all bad, the one good thing about study-abroads is that they will always be gone soon.
I have just one question. Why do people have a need to capitalize the most random words? In this article, Mother and Father. In Chloe’s letter, Death Stares. I don’t get it.
This is an article printed in Richmond's "paper" (not the real one, but just stapled oversized papers) last week. There's a big problem on our campus with degree students and abroads trying to get along. It's been an issue since the day we moved in - they give off an "I'm better than you" kind of vibe.
There's so much to say about the article that I'm not even going to get that into it right now. As soon as I can get a copy of the response Brittainy wrote, I'll try to post it so you have an idea of our side of the story. For now, you'll just have to understand that there's a bit of tension around here.
Degrees of Separation by Sophia Flint
Richmond is a school that boasts “Unity in Diversity”. However, that diversity is no where to be seen on the Kensington Campus where the American study-abroads immensely out-number the on-campus student body; and most will agree that there is definitely no unity between the study-abroads and the degree students. To the degree students it appears as if all that “Unity in Diversity” talk at Richmond Hill was propaganda for the War of US vs. THEM: the Richmond Jihad, the unending and justifiable struggle against the infidel that has inundated our common room with The OC and classrooms with questions like: “What language do they speak in Greece?” and “Is Bolivia part of the EU?”
Is it true that as a whole degree students, really, truly hate study-abroads? In a word: yes. If anything, it’s a Richmond tradition and begs further inspection into the question of “why”. Is it that they as a whole are the embodiments that characterise greater frustrations? Is it the oblivious nature that they as a collective whole seem to have? Is it envy? Most study-abroads would agree with this point, remarking how truly sad we are as not to come from the country that has produced Dr. Phil and TacoBell. Admittedly, a lot of it is envy; not for this reason, but envy because we are feeling as the long-suffering partner who has been tossed aside for a more advantageous mistress by our school.
This separation of study-abroad vs. degree students, often called the “Great Divide”, does not occur until one gets to Kensington. At this academic level, when you have left the cloister of Richmond Hill for Kensington, most degree students have fled the nest for greener pastures or at least better flats and have no need to deal with the study-abroads on a daily basis. However, for us tragic few who remain on campus, we have become painfully aware that the Richmond we knew and loved is under occupation and we have no allies to assist us or even help us address this crisis. Instead, at Kensington we are saddled with an absentee University President, an inept SGA, and various staff who have little to no on-campus presence.
Not realising or not understanding the severity of the problem due to their absence, the administration has done nothing to curb our troubles and in fact fuels it by things like the AIFS Pizza/Beer Party, where we degree students are sat like beggars on the sidelines, banished from our own common room. Adding to the envy-generated hostility, the AIFS Program affords the study-abroad an on-site Study Abroad Coordinator, free rail passes, an AIFS recruitment officer and the services of John O’Connell and Fay Poosti to see them through. As a degree student, my accumulated tuition fees of nearly US$100,000 has neither afforded mean on-site Career Counselor or a seat in Alex Seago’s SSC310 class which is a “Study-Abroad Only”. This is, however, only the tip of the iceberg.
A graduating senior once said that the main problem they had about study-abroads was that “...they take away the resources, complain about how London isn’t America, contribute nothing and then they leave. This is not a way to establish a good reputation for Richmond.” Indeed, to the degree students, the study-abroads are seen as visitors to a place that is “ours”, and as guests, they should conform to a degree of politeness and respect, or as much respect as a group of twenty-somethings can manage to observe. However, year after year we seem to be saddled with an overwhelming number of American youth suffering from generational Middle Class Anxiety who treat Richmond as the latest Sigma-Phi frat house and London like a trip to the Jersey Shore.
Some of our hostilities stem from their bad manners, impoliteness and general disrespect: disrespect for their neighbours, our professors and our school. As if they do not realise that to many degree students Richmond is more than our home school, it is our home. Richmond works a bit like the Island of Misfit Toys: many have been displaced due to war or occupation and others, finding a sense of identity elusive, come from multinational backgrounds; so we find unity here with people from similar backgrounds. Thus, part of the hostility comes from a failure to find a common ground between the typical degree student, who has a Persian Mother, a Latvian Father and grew up in Angola, and the average study-abroad, who comes from 12 generations of Bostonians and who doesn’t know where Angola is.
Another issue of envy and respect is the notion that for many of us academics are not a matter of pass/fail. There is a perception that the study-abroad does not nor is expected to work as hard as we do. This is evident by the weekday madness that can be heard at any given night of the week. As crazy as it sounds, degree students need to study and get to sleep so we can get to our 9:00a.m. classes on a Friday morning. It is disrespectful and a little disconcerting to be awakened out of your sleep at 3:00a.m. with an angry neighbour shouting, “I’m going to come up there and rape you” to the study-abroads you share a floor with. Also distracting are the Ambassador House riots, as suffered through last semester, the hallway football games and general neighbours having a beer party or coming home late drunk. This is coupled with general signs of disrespect to our school, such as last semester’s unsettling vandalism of the Atlantic House showers and this semester’s needless destruction of the Ambassador House’s soda machine. Part of it is the price you pay when you live on campus: upon the fifth occasion, I was referred to as a “DS” and was subsequently made to pay £20 because a visiting degree student took a fire sticker off the Ambassador House’s wall - I feel a little disrespected.
As easy targets, degree students also hold study-abroads responsible for the frustrations of Richmond’s campus life. The housing crisis of Spring 2003, overcrowded classrooms and canteen, the loud conversations about American football scores and credit card limits that disrupt work in the computer labs, wearing pyjamas to class, the drunken chants when stumbling home from the latest pilgrimage to The Sports Cafe, The Great 12 November 2004 Riot at Ambassador House, the sea of North Face jackets, writing “Yankee’s Suck” our “our” common room’s Italian leather couches and, most critically, taking up valuable computers to hold three simultaneous MSN internet conversations and make travel plans while degree students stand waiting to finish term papers.
Most of my gripes come from the so-called “oblivious Americans.” I speak of course about the neighbour who gets a phone call at 2:30a.m. and so goes out into the hall as not to disturb her roommate, and carries a conversation in the hall unaware that every door in the hall is startled out of their sleep due to the acoustics of her conversation, or the person walking around in the cafeteria who did not think it impolite to wear a jumper promoting the Israeli Armed Forces in a school that has a strong Muslim presence. And before that there was a group of girls who asked a common room full of twenty football fanatics if they could relocate to a pub, so they could watch The OC. I am often surprised by the patience of my fellow degree students, who long suffering, meet this behavior with a well tempered sigh, or roll of the eyes, and well timed quips like “Who are you?” and “What part of Jersey are you from?”
Indeed, the very battleground of the degree student vs. the study-abroad has become the lower levels of Atlantic and Ambassador House. The study-abroads have become “bad guest” and the degree students, as their “host”, have foregone geniality and have become increasingly more hostile. The fragmentation has fractured so far as to have degree students alienated from the motto of “Unity in Diversity” and often use about totalitarian isolation from the study-abroads, such as housing quarters, laundry facilities, and computer labs.
We recognise that study-abroads are a necessary evil, similar to ants and roaches. They provide necessary economic funds to Richmond, bringing in an estimated US$5million through the Richmond AIFS program alone. However like ants and roaches, they as a collective whole are annoying, and everywhere.
Is every study-abroad hated? No, of course not. The degree student, once he or she deals with them on a personal level, gains comrades, study-buddies and even friends. However, the growing resentment between the degree students and the study-abroads often does not allow for this. Study-abroads are the embodiment of envy and frustration over a university that, in previous years despite an economic crunch, allowed them to visit despite not having the accommodation to house them, provided them with adequate computer access, a place to sit at dinner and in class. However, that which it does extend to the visiting students it does not provide to its own, which is unacceptable at what will now be US$32,000 a year.
All study-abroads are paying for the crimes of their predecessors, our discontent with our own school, and envy. Thus, they are vilified and are unfairly seen by degree students as perpetuating a stigma as a group of rude, lazy, impolite, boorish, loud, disrespectful elitists. Strangely enough for these reasons, our treatment of them has ironically branded us the impolite, boorish, loud, disrespectful elitists. Thus, to my fellow ex-patriots, internationals and occasional Canadians: it’s not all bad, the one good thing about study-abroads is that they will always be gone soon.
I have just one question. Why do people have a need to capitalize the most random words? In this article, Mother and Father. In Chloe’s letter, Death Stares. I don’t get it.