California Culture
This entry is part of a CCR blogging exchange between Stanford, the American University of Cairo, and Orebro University in Sweden. Students have been asked to post a "university culture" entry introducing something about their university culture (or national culture) to an audience of students across the world. Then, other students will comment and we will soon have a rich dialogue, as students develop ways of writing for international audiences and hopefully learn about ways of life across the globe.
int main()
{
printf("hello, world");
return 0;
}
Here at Stanford, we are chill most of the time, or so it seems. We live under the warm Californian sun. It’s warm 90% of the time and clouds always look lonely. So it’s really hard not be relaxed when you’re not solving differential equations, and even sometimes when you are. But we somehow manage to find time to work and time to relax, which is essential to surviving as a student. We aren’t competitive but we are ambitious. We come to Stanford with high expectations of ourselves and don’t cut ourselves short by pushing each other down. It’s a collaborative environment because we know we need cooperation in order to be successful. But it’s not just about working and being successful in our own eyes. Our difficult workload is always balanced by the tendency to enjoy the sun and each other’s company.
Adrian: I’m Adrian and I’m from Virginia, the greatest state in the history of the world. I don’t know what I want to study but I’m leaning towards engineering and definitely away from anything fuzzy—fuzzy being anything that generally doesn’t involve numbers or some kind of lab. I like art.
Bri: Hi! I’m from Seattle, Washington where it rains all the time, so I’m especially happy to be in California. My favorite things are orange juice and doing homework in the sun. I plan to be a Human Biology major as a first step to becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon.
Joe: Hello, I am from Virginia, the greatest political region in the history of the world. Currently, I plan on studying Physics, specifically Astrophysics or Particle Physics. However, I am not fully committed to any major. I am equally interested in Geopolitics and Computer Science. return 1/0;
Comments
Guys, I really like your post! First because of the spontaneous pic you put and because of the friendly spirit you talked about. Yes, it is not all about professional life! Here at AUC we have this kind of friendly atmosphere too. The fact that we are all AUCians is enough! In other words, we all go through good and hard times together. At the beginning of each semester for example, we all suffer from the ridiculous process of the courses registration. And during finals, we all share the same feelings of panic and stress. We have a lot to study and many projects that should be submitted on their due dates. In contrast, in parties and celebrations we do nothing but having fun! Actually, students here have a good chance to entertain themselves because of the numerous events that are held such as the welcome party, talent show, Halloween, International day, and many others.
Finally, I would like also to introduce myself. I’m Inji, this is my third semester in college and I’m intending to major in Business with a concentration in marketing. My big dream is launching my own multimedia company that hits the market with its cartoon movies production! I adore dancing so I joined the Folklore troupe at AUC; you can check how it looks like if you wrote ‘AUC folklore troupe’ on you tube. I think this will be interesting to watch.
Posted by: Inji El Hawari | October 26, 2009 03:34 PM
Hi Inji! We watched your dance troupe's video and loved it! We couldn't find your blog post, but we're still glad to get to know you a little. I'm glad you have a tight community to suffer with. Almost makes it fun, even. Almost...
Posted by: Adrian and Raina | October 28, 2009 04:59 PM
Hi Adrian, Bri and Joe!!:)My name is Aya and I'm from Egypt a place responsible for a significant part of the history of the world!:P. I'm a freshmen at AUC , a science major intending to declare electronics engineering :), I don't like any thing " Fuzzy -fuzzy" either but I do enjoy economics and political science, . I was really excited about the cross-cultural blog idea and I'm really happy I got to know something about you guys,, it was nice having faces to match profiles to as well. I enjoyed your blog ,you guys make studying seem so much fun!, I've never been to the US but now I'm really anxious to visit Stanford. Here in Cairo we have plenty of sun most year round too ,it never gets too cold ( not on international standards). The new AUC campus is located in a new part of Cairo,, conveniently named " new Cairo" the best thing about the location is that its away from all the Cairo pollution so you can really slow down and take a breath out there. And because its almost in the desert, on certain days of the year it gets really hot or really cold but mostly the weather is just pleasant and enjoyable. looking forward to our conference , take care guys!!:)
Posted by: Aya Salama | October 30, 2009 01:31 AM
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