What’s that noise? It sounds a little like a pulse. Maybe it’s the speakers next door? Perhaps the movers dropping heavy boxes after trundling up a flight of stairs? Or is it something else?
It is all of these things and more-it’s getting to know your roommates, suitemates, the kids next door, the kids on your floor and everyone in between.
It’s your freshman experience.
In an effort to ease the transition, new students reach out to those they think they can relate to. To find like-minded peers, students follow a general rule of thumb: look for those who look like you.
As the study, “Campus Diversity and Student Self-Segregation: Separating Myths From Facts” noted, the pattern of freshmen gravitating to those of similar race and ethnicity stems from “.the degree of continuing segregation in America’s schools and communities. [Therefore], it isn’t surprising that college students today do sometimes choose to live, socialize, or study together with other students from similar backgrounds.”
Like the majority of freshmen, Brent Sherman is, “just a bit concerned that I won’t make any real close friends. I’m also worried that if I do make friends our free time will only overlap on the weekends which would make keeping and strengthening friendships difficult.”
Couple these fears with a desire for comfort and it’s no mystery why students succumb to the temptation of befriending peers primarily from similar backgrounds.
As freshman Hyojin Choi discovered, however, leaving one’s comfort zone is ultimately a rewarding experience.
After moving to Champaign, Ill. from South Korea, Hyojin enrolled in a predominately white, middle class Catholic high school. Understandably, she was shy at first, but after her classmates reached out to her, she became more comfortable and made close friends. Hyojin’s experience has encouraged her to make diversity a priority during her time at Wash. U. She reasons that, “if I have diverse friends, I will be more open to new things.”
Research conducted by Patricia Gurin, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, supports Hyojin’s view.
“Students learn better in [a diverse] environment and are better prepared to become active participants in our pluralistic, democratic society once they leave school,” reported Gurin.
Fortunately, Wash. U.’s diversity presents its students with countless opportunities to interact with peers of a variety of backgrounds. However, the challenges and fears that go hand-in-hand with the first year handicap many freshmen and therefore limit their willingness to form relationships with a variety of individuals early on in their college careers.
To encourage cross-cultural discussion and socializing, the University sponsors open forums such as Campus Week of Dialogue and student groups such as The Solution host social gatherings during the year. As critics point out, however, many students attend these events, but fall back into the same social patterns as before once they end.
Though the University and student groups can make every effort to encourage multiculturalism, the onus of strengthening cross-cultural connections lies with individual students. Developing such relationships must begin freshman year.
But how do you surmount your fears and leap into unfamiliarity?
From limiting the range of influence different cultural clubs have on freshmen to simply introducing freshmen to settings in which they encounter a wide range of individuals, upperclassmen have suggested many ways to cross cultural barriers to foster true diversity on campus.
Sophomore Nicholas McKenna advocates imposing a “second semester-only” restriction on cultural clubs similar to the rush policy that the University imposes on Greek organizations. While creating such a restriction may limit freshman involvement in some organizations, doing so will encourage them to look to different outlets to make friends.
Either in lieu of or in addition to this measure, the University and student groups can increase the number of programs targeted at freshmen that are designed to break cultural barriers. Currently, Orientation events focus on this goal. After Orientation, however, cross-culturalism falls by the wayside and freshmen seek out the safety of cultural similarity and the pattern of self-segregation continues.
As Kim Short, a Koenig Four RA, attests, the temptation for students to align themselves with other intellectuals of similar backgrounds is too alluring to pass up freshman year. For Kim, Wash. U. presented her with an opportunity that was severely limited in her predominately white high school-the chance to interact with other African American intellectuals.
Now a junior, Kim acknowledges that, “it’s a step-by-step process. [Freshman year] was about submerging myself in my culture. [Sophomore year] I branched out because I had fulfilled that need. Yes, college is a time about getting acclimated, but you’re also here to learn and grow.”
Though bonding with people of the same (insert nationality, ethnicity or social class here) group nurtures the need for comfort and community, doing so may inadvertently lead to segregation and thus limit both one’s social sphere and educational depth. Starting with the first year, students must make the conscious decision to associate with those different from themselves.
A refusal (subconscious or not) to leave one’s comfort zone fosters a sense of separation and makes a fairly small gap amongst cultures seem wider and deeper than the construction hole outside Mallinckrodt.
Wandalyn is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].
Scott Bressler