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The Times of India has a story about what an Indian university student thought were the most surprising aspects of his experience studying in the US.
Aniruddh Chaturvedi came from Mumbai to Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., where he is majoring in computer science. This past summer he interned at a tech company in Silicon Valley.
It's interesting reading, some of which you might expect, about economic differences, supermarkets, obesity, etc. made his list of surprising things.
But Americans in general seem to come across to Aniruddh somewhat better than we come across to ourselves:
- Nobody talks about grades here.
- Everyone is highly private about their accomplishments and failures.
- Far from being competitive, Students were highly collaborative
- Strong ethics — everyone has a lot of integrity
- Girls are not very promiscuous, contrary to most Hollywood films
- Almost every single American has access to basic food, clothing, water and sanitation.
- Emphasis on physical fitness/being outdoorsy
His observations were not filled with the anti-American observations that Americans have come to expect from visitors, or that many of us see in our daily lives. He is not totally unaware of some less negative aspects, discrimination, waste of food, money, and prices. But by and large these aspects did not seem a major part of his impressions.
One wonders whether his naïveté will get bruised and he will come to his senses as his studies progress, or if the US is actually nowhere near as bad as many of us think it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @10:13PM
I don't disagree with anything he said, positive or negative.
Well, maybe the part about weed being treated the same as cigarettes. Smoking weed is still against the law in most of the US. However, on college campuses smoking weed is probably considered more acceptable than smoking tobacco.
The part of hyper-competitive students ripping pages from library books - I heard that long ago about pre-med students in general, but I didn't hear of it happening at the college I went to.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @10:37PM
Keep your eye on the November election returns.
Cannabis is on the ballot in Oregon, Alaska, The District of Columbia, and Florida. [leafly.com]
Prohibition of marijuana is bound for the same fate as alcohol prohibition.
It won't be too long now.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 18 2014, @12:05AM
O-Hi-O!! O-Hi-O!!
(Score: 2) by velex on Sunday October 19 2014, @04:42PM
I hope so. Unfortunately, I live in a state that will (may) be dragged kicking and screaming into legalization. There's the pervasive attitude that anybody who wants marijuana already has access, so legalization is not necessary, There's an almost precise rejection of the new research about marijuana that shows that it may be healthy, or at least, certainly not Reefer Madness at least.
Is it too much to hope that my supposed 9th amendment rights might be upheld by this disgusting species?
I'm not sure I will even vote next month. There is no reason—nothing on the ballot that will help me. This coming from me, somebody who used to drive friends to the polls just to vote for somebody (I'd tell them, vote green for fucks sake! Just vote!), to express choice. Such hopelessness.
I don't know how much longer I have.
Alcohol prohibition lasted what? A decade?
Marijuana has been illegal almost a century. The people have gotten used to it. The people want it. The people believe insane shit about marijuana, ironically, the kind of illogic I'd expect a stoner to present me with!
They want their opiod pain pills, not matter what harm it causes them. A painkiller that won't rot your liver? Feh, who needs it! They want their SSRI drugs, nevermind that the best model I've studied says they work similarly to cannabis. Hell, I remember when I asked a doctor for an SSRI prescription. You'd have thought I was fucking high as hell 10 minutes after I took the pill! Yet, the SSRI is terribly addictive. One must take increasing dosages for the dose to be effective. Why can't I have a drug that is neuroprotective and might make me feel *well*?
To be clear. I am not directing this rage at you. I am simply frustrated in general.
I don't know wtf this comment has to do with TFA. Sorry.