<p>how are the asians at UA like? i know, this is a weird question, but as an asian myself, i want to know what they tend to do around campus, what majors they typically do, etc… :)</p>
<p>haha…anyone? :D</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I’m not trying to offend anyone or stereotype certain groups of people. I am however, trying to answer the questions honestly and with some detail. I apologize in advance if someone is offended by my post.</p>
<p>As you know, there Asian population is quite small in Alabama compared to the West Coast, but it is growing with the many Asian manufacturers opening manufacturing plants in Alabama. A good amount of the Asian students at UA are international students and there is also a fair amount professors who are originally form Asia, particularly in mathematics, business, and engineering. </p>
<p>In reality, the number of domestic Asian students is too small for me to even try to make a generalization of what they major in or do for fun in and around campus, especially if you divide the group by their country/region of ancestry. Sure some have majors commonly associated with Asian students, but many do not. The benefit of there being a small number of your particular race/ethnicity (I realize that those are two distinct things) is that you are arguably more free to defy stereotypes that are commonly attributed to people of your background. I wouldn’t worry about there not being many Asians on campus. I am of the opinion that given some time, a person will find a supportive group of friends wherever they may be.</p>
<p>Along with Asians, you may notice that there are not as many Hispanic people as you are used to seeing and this is also because the Hispanic population in Alabama is not as large as some other states. Similarly, there is probably a higher percentage of African Americans in and around UA than you are used to seeing. All this is a great example of how the United States is a very diverse country. Just today, I was thinking about all the different accents and languages I was hearing as I did some errands in and around my hometown and it was amazing how many there were. In addition to the different regional accents of the US and Canada, I heard languages such as Russian, Spanish, and Korean, among others. In Tuscaloosa, there would be a different variety. Similar to my response to questions asking if a “Northerner” would feel comfortable going to school in the South, I will say that you be fine attending school at UA provided that you realize that there are cultural differences between your hometown and UA just as there are between any two distinct places in the world. One culture isn’t better than another, it’s just different. It is up to you to create the mixture of different cultures that you like. It could be something as simple as having both sushi and grits for dinner in that if such a combination works for you, that’s great and if not, try a different combination.</p>
<p>I hope I answered your question, albeit somewhat long-windedly. Is there a specific activity you had a question about?</p>
<p>Bravo, Sea_tide, for having the courage and integrity to take on such a difficult topic, and then handle it with grace and aplomb.</p>
<p>This is my observation about Asians at Bama.</p>
<p>Asians are not equally distributed across all majors at Bama. The Asian students tend to be more clustered in a handful of majors…such as eng’g, bio, chem, physics, math, and maybe business (but I don’t know about that). I’m not saying that there aren’t any Asians in other majors, just more in these majors.</p>
<p>Good for you, Seatide. I am so proud of our younger generation, how you are so open to embracing people no matter their racial, ethnic, intellectual, or socio-economic “classification”.</p>
<p>Sea_Tide, when you run for president someday you are welcome to put a yard sign up at my place.</p>
<p>Siglio21: My son has always embraced other cultures and peoples. Because of the nature of my husband’s job, my sons have been around people from Latin America (as a result, my oldest son and his dad speak excellent Spanish) He spent 10 days following the school year as part of an Alabama service project in Costa Rica.</p>
<p>When his junior and senior years of high school, my son went to a state governors school for math, science and technology. About 40 percent of the students were Asian-Americans. He thought it was awesome (our HS has no Asian-American students). Some of the students whose families hailed from India taught him some of their native languages. He was invited to watch them put together a traditional dance. He still keeps in touch with many of those students. </p>
<p>Perhaps his upbringing does lend itself to learning about other people. This year, one of his suite mates is part Hispanic. One of his girlfriend’s suite mates is African American. During his freshman year, one of his suite mates was fascinated with the Asian languages and culture. He also wanted to have the chance to work on his Japanese, so on Sundays, he hosted a Japanese film night. My son went to some of them. He had a lot of fun chatting with the exchange students, who got the chance to have a taste of home (thanks to his suite mate) and still work on their English with students who came from elsewhere in the U.S. </p>
<p>My son’s attitude is that people are people.</p>
<p>well ok :)…so basically, there’s not a big asian “community” at the school, so they tend to meld in with which ever group they hang out with?</p>
<p>Correct. Of course, people do often hang out with others of similar backgrounds and who share common interests, so you will see some groups of Asian students around campus just like you will see groups of people from the same fraternity/sorority, sports team, academic program, etc.</p>