<p>Ummm... by liberal, I meant open to other cultures. 8-)</p>
<p>Coming from NY to the Rice/Baylor program, I feel somewhat qualified to chime in here.</p>
<p>I hav found Texas to be a great place to go to school, and it seems to be a pretty darn good place to live. As others have noted, Houston is a racially, politically, religiously, and ideologically diverse city. I have found racial and ethnic tensions here to be minimal. Yes, like anywhere, tensions exist, but I have not found them to be a major problem. For example, I have encountered nothing but kindness and tolerance when strolling in the city with my boyfriend who is quite obvously not the same race as I am. </p>
<p>I am sorry that Pharmagal seems to have had a very different experience than I have had here. Perhaps things really have changed significantly in the past 20 years; the demographics certainly have shifted enormously.</p>
<p>One thing that drives me crazy though: People who claim that Texans on the whole are a racist, ignorant group of people. I mean really. If the problem one has with all Texans is that they believe in harmful stereotypes, isn't that a little hypocritical?</p>
<p>Well! Not sure how long you have lived/worked in Houston. Are you just starting your junior year in College there? I suppose you live in the dorms? Life in dorms tends to be rather different from life outside its boundaries.</p>
<p>My experiences are based on life outside the University. I went to Grad school in Houston and then lived in a rented house out in the suburbs for a few years. My hubby whom I met at the Univ while in Grad school and I were both in grad school and then doing postdoc research in Houston.</p>
<p>So, my experiences are not circumscribed to dorm life in Houston.</p>
<p>Also, as I mentioned before, it vastly depends on where you come from.....whether you are a brown southeast Asian as opposed to a fair skinned Australian........or a fair skinned individual from wherever.</p>
<p>Bottomline is - Yes. Experiences vary based on unfortunately the skin color in Houston.</p>
<p>I came very close to attending medical school at Baylor and have spent every day for the past year and a half regretting that I did not.</p>
<p>Nothing here changes that -- and my skin color is certainly not "fair".</p>
<p>so BDM, where did u get in?</p>
<p>My son came to Houston from NJ. His suite at Rice and his off campus apartment were like a mini UN, and the same continues now that he is at BCM. He has found Houstonians to at least as open-minded as Northeasterners.</p>
<p>Sounds like we need to visit Houston now, 25 years after our degrees at least to see how much it has changed.</p>