What I aim to find abroad is a different academic culture, not to have the “finding oneself” experience that so many study abroad programs are sold to be. More than that, I want to be in an academic culture that’s more nurturing and enthusiastic, rather than hostile and divisive. What I aim to find during my year abroad in London is a different academic culture, not to have the “finding oneself” experience that so many study abroad programs are sold to be. More than that, I want to be in an academic culture that’s more nurturing and enthusiastic, rather than hostile and divisive.
This year abroad will be a well-needed break from what I have experienced over the past two years. My courses and professors have thus far been fantastic beyond what I imagined, in how supportive they have been, in fostering my academic interests, and in making me truly enjoy the subject matter in every class. Even in the hardest of classes, it was fair. Difficult, but fair. Those classes are not marked as dark moments in my academic career, but hard-won successes. What I do not want to take time off from is the academic side.
The things that have bothered me over the past two years have never been academics, but instead what comes between them as what some would consider a natural part of the academic experience. Being involved in different clubs and working for The Hoot for the past year and a half, as well as studying almost exclusively in four departments, may be providing me with a view of the campus that is not entirely genuine. Most students do not know about all that goes on around the campus as members of the campus publications do. I can’t entirely say where the true source of this hostility is, other than it being popular for people in our age group to rage against the machine with all of its justified and unjustified problems. With a never-ending craving for emotional experience in an age of incredible material prosperity for the socio-economic groups that are most likely to attend college, some insincere complaints will arise. This diminishes real deep-seated issues that groups here deal with, issues that rarely make their way into larger pieces in the campus newspapers, but unfortunately can only be seen on social media and in gossip around campus. I have elaborated on a few of these issues in previous writing, but I still lack the real digging to truly gauge what’s going on.
What stunned me most about my experience so far is the confirmation bias that I have seen unlike anything I had before. This can be attributed to the fact that I had never felt the inclination to involve myself in politics much before the end of high school, but my hometown never had total consensus about the issues they cared about. However, I came into college with the most idealistic of views: I wanted to be rescued from what I saw as an in-group/out-group mentality in high school, where people got ahead in sports and went to college for performance in sports (I am not saying this does not help large numbers of kids, but I was no star athlete). I didn’t have a solid political view, and I still do not, but when I thought of the “like-minded” people I would find in higher education, I thought that I would find people unafraid to be enthusiastic, who would overcome and not fetishize their struggles, and would help me help them in doing so. I was only beginning to see the importance in studying politics, and with the dedicated and enthusiastic teachers I had with the very small group of enthusiastic kids in the A.P. history and politics classes, I thought I would find an abundance of people like that in college. That is not what I have found, exactly.
Maybe it’s the fact that I am around my peers more often, in that we do not return home to different neighborhoods or teams at night, but instead that we are mostly within a mile or two of each other. Maybe it is the result of helicopter parenting, but what can I say about it if so many of us have experienced it (not my parents as much, to the best of my knowledge)? Maybe we are all still trying to shed the insecurity fostered by many growing up? I’m no stranger to it. Many of us are dealing with day-to-day freedom like we never had before, and we all cope differently. Of course, I have to admit, I have not felt as much of the financial burden as many of my peers have, though I have tried to educate myself more about it.
Regardless, I came to college hoping to find an intellectual utopia where we shirked off the struggles of difficult professors because we had each other, that the social aspect of a shared academic environment would be the social contract that kept us together. We could debate the finer points of economics and epistemology until we exhausted whatever new knowledge we’d acquired from classes and books from the library. This exists in some capacity for sure, and I cherish the moments when real discussion takes place. When it does, I always come out of it feeling excited, or some form of respectful anger toward a person who won against me in an argument. That’s something I would like—realizing the cracks in our ideologies and arguments so that we can improve them rather than hating our opponents as if they have innate, evil intentions.
Since I believe I am human, I am guilty of impassioned hatred every once in awhile. When arguments are lost without losing respect for the other person or without the other person losing sight of honest intentions, there’s really nothing to hate. Just read more and do better next time. We are here to make the world better, to bring about our own visions of social justice, but we may disagree on the means by which to achieve it. It is very easy to lose sight of that. Some of us did not come here with that vision, and that is fine. I chose Brandeis because I could easily receive credit for studying business, economics, politics and film all at once. I have certainly changed since then. A sizable group of students seems to be guilty of choosing Brandeis to have their views confirmed, and some with authority and power have a stake in that not changing. This is not to dismiss any students of responsibility themselves. This blame is not damning; I would just offer that we seriously take this into account rather than labeling it as a visceral reaction.
The hostility that manifests itself in discussions on students’ social media is devoid of any form of respect for one another, as well as the old rule of “innocent until proven guilty.” It is built on assumptions from every end of the spectrum of belief, and not everyone is equally liable. Sometimes the hostility is calculated for spectacle, and in possibly more cases, it is a result from trying to unwaveringly believe in something in a world where ideology can easily be identified and dismissed.
Whatever hostility arises, consider who you are speaking for, speaking about and whether or not the wider experience is completely similar to the one you have had in your life. It is hard to make assumptions about people you have never really taken the time to understand and about conflicts in areas you have never been to. To really know an issue is to take the risk of reading conflicting literature and publications, and to not block people who disagree with you on social media. It takes a lot of work, and it takes everyone, though that is not to say any small inch in the direction of mutual respect and us realizing that our ideas can be imperfect. The loss of this has cultivated an environment of disillusionment and delusion in many of our students, resulting in hostility a lack of care for each other. No wonder I did not hesitate to skip away for a year or so.
I am coming back in the fall of 2017, however. I do not want to leave the connections and friends behind, and challenges yet to be undertaken. There is far too much I would miss if I decided to go somewhere else. I want to stick it out to the end. If there is anything I would like to change at Brandeis while I’m gone, it would be a change in us, in what we value in others and how we go about meeting people who are different. That goes for any issue, be it economic systems or borders. This may sound like I am leaving so that I do not have to do the work involved, and I accept that criticism. I would like a time to put everything here in perspective, to change myself a bit and learn more from more people in depth. I want to do more for myself and be ready for the conversations that I will have when I return.
