FINDINGS 'DIFFERENT AS
Foreign Student Reviews
Campus Social Structure
By Achlin Jurchen
German Student In Journalism
These lines are Jotted down long
after midnight, the time at which
you cannot sleep anyway in a dorm
of the U of O. Doors are slammed,
somebody is hooting down the cor
. ridor, and an especially smart fel
low gives the latest hit song a
dress-rehearsal, the song that he is
going to serenade to his date to-;
morrow night.
While the approaching finals add ,
some more gray hairs to a few stu- j
dents, I realize that a quarter of a
year of study abroad has passed
for me. What were the things that J
bewildered me most, were com-'
■ pletely new and made thorough
adjustment necessary ?
Not too many of the foreign stu-!
dents had figured out before, the !
amount of red-tape they would
have to fight at an American uni
versity. The registration week
caused some faces to grow grim
at bureaucracy, but more so with
the questions one had to answer in
questionnaires:
Questions
How do you spend your leisure
- time? What is the education of
your mother? etc. The first re
action: ‘'That is not your concern:’'
It took some time to make us be
lieve that those answers might be
_ useful for instructors or advisers
to understand emerging difficulties
of the individual student.
• When we had passed this ‘ordeal’
of registration with one laughing
eye, the next difficulties that need
ed adjustment turned up: living in
a dormitory. To be frank, I have
| not yet succeeded in making this
adjustment. When you have lived
in youth-hostels all over the world,
you are shocked by the noisy, un
couth and boisterous behavior of a
great many American students.
The first week I enjoyed water
. bagging, playing pranks of various
kinds, noise, parties and honking
, around. But when I found out that
it is always going to be this way I
became a little bit afraid of the fu
ture.
Regulations
There are regulations for not
keeping empty luggage in your
room, of not damaging the walls
by thumb-tacks, but there is no
effort made to make the stay at a
dormitory a pleasant one by urg
ing people to care a little bit about
the other guy. I can hardly get any
- sleep before 2 a.m. That is true for
many students, too.
Valuable energy, sleep and time
are lost, and your hair stands on
, end when you find a coke-bottle
placed carefully in the W.C.
When you have finally given in
to the obviously unchangable sit
uation in your place of living be
cause personal initiative or ad
monishing among the fellow-stu
dents just causes name-calling, you
decide to fall in with the general
trend of the foreign students: to
move off campus at the best op
portunity.
Facilities
In the meantime you have the
chance to get acquainted with all
. the unique facilities you have on
the campus. A European student
' who is used to doing his work with
' makeshift and only the very nec
essary facilities is amazed by the
• abundance of material he has here:
the full-fledged library, films, re
cordings, a University newspaper
_ and radio station, music listening
rooms, equipment for physical edu
cation, the school’s own stadium,
museums, a student union building,
and a great variety of other ma
terial, institutions and organiza
[ tions that can help to make study
1 ing successful and recreation en
^ joyable.
But most of all there is the fac
ulty with their informal attitude
toward the student that is of great
' help, and in this respect the for
eign students havo found much un
derstanding and assistance from
the foreign student adviser (K. S.
Ghent).
And then it is high time to get
down to studying. Here the new
things are: the calling of the roll,
always being pushed by reading
assignments, papers, tests, mid
term exams, finals. Apparently the
American student is not trusted
very much and not considered ma
ture enough.
(/ramming
We get adjusted to the system
regretting only that a little too
much emphasis is placed on cram
ming the material than giving it
deep thought, giving it its logical
position in an overall system and
allowng no time to spend on per
sonal research work.
But in general I really appreci
ate the valuable endeavors made
by the faculty to help the students j
in their work and advancement. It I
is not inferior nor superior to our i
system; it is just different.
Underground
After six weeks or so you start
to understand underground tend
encies which are perceptible only
to a very alert ear and eye. You
find that the campus also has its
snobbish side. There is underlying
behavior that boys or girls from
fraternities or sororities are bet
ter or superior to people living in
independent organizations.
Are they really? At least it is
not a very nice or democratic atti
tude. It has created an extremely
clannish atmosphere that has
somewhat infected the whole com
munity. I have experienced that
the situation is different and bet
ter on other campuses.
Genuine efforts are made by
some of the religious groups and
by the Cosmopolitan club to absorb
foreign students. So on the whole
the average foreign student will
have more friends among other
foreign students than among
Americans.
Sewage Problem
To Be Discussed
C. D. Byrnes, chancellor of the
state system of higher education,
has appointed a special committee
to investigate the possibility of
having the University of Oregon
and Oregon State college share the
costs of new sewage dispisal con
struction in Eugene and Corvallis.
A proposal to have the Univer
sity share construction costs was
recently made by the Eugene city
council. Byrnes will take no ac
tion on the matter until the com
mittee has made its report, said
J. O. Lindstrom, business manager
of the University.
Members of the committee in
clude H. A. Bork, comptroller of
the state system of higher educa
tion; A. M. Westling, planning con
sultant of the Bureau of Municipal
Research; Lindstrom, and two
members of the faculty of Oregon
State college.
library Announces
Hours for Holiday
Library hours for the Christmas
vacation period were announced
Monday by Carl W. Hintz, libra
rian.
The University library will be
open Mondays, Tuesdays and Fri
days, Dec. 22 through Jan. 2, from
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will be open
Wednesdays and Saturdays, Dec.
20 through Jan. 3, from 9 a.m. to
12 noon, and it will be closed all
day on Sundays and Thursday,
Jan. 1.
The fact is that a new student
meets an extremely friendly and
warm atmosphere but hardly has
any chance to get integrated with
the groups, clubs or organizations
that are on the campus. The rec
reation always has to be ‘fun’ and
possibly noisy.
Outlet
The hard work of studying must
find an outlet some time. I saw
students in Berlin walking around
with obsolete caps on their heads,
night-gowns over their suits and
carrying posters that said they be
longed to the "Kuny-Movement”
and demanded ‘free love.’ So I real
ly enjoyed the noise-parade, but
somewhere in the pit of my stom
ach it gave me an ill feeling. Is
there not a psychological trend in
modern man to cover up quiet
ness ?
One who withdraws from the
crowd once in a while Is labelled as
'different' and often enough called
an introvert. Everything has to be
in the superlative and very con
spicuous. Why is there no contest
for the smartest, the most polite,
the most thoughtful fellow ?
Superficiality
The same superficiality I found
in the system of dating. When the
freshman girl does not date as
often as her friend, her social pres
tige will sink. So she will date with
fellows she is not interested in.
Symbols of affection become rath
er meaningless and more or less a
habit.
You find the explanation that
she wants to meet as many people
as possible in order to get to know
them and better understand them
to make the right choice for the
later partner. But I am sure that
a better way of selection and sin
cere kind of friendship with fel
lows would give her more.
Once I went—for the fun of it—
on a blind date. Believe me, I shall
never do it again. I am afraid that
a few people lose the sense of real
values in this race for social recog
nition and association.
Tendencies
It must be admitted that there
are strong generalizations in the
above lines, but I tried to find gen
eral tendencies. I have found excel
lent buddies and less volupt and
sophisticated girls on the campus
than pictured.
Most of the foreign students re
alize that they have a singular
chance to study at this university,
and they do not stand aside crit
ically, but try to participate and to
get and to give as much as possible.
Nevertheless, I felt an obligation
to tell about the experiences and
situations that stunned us most.
And any of us will take home an
extremely valuable experience in
international living because un
derstanding each other and -trying
to find the sources for the be
havior of the other will prevent
further prejudice and antagonism.
Carefree
The carefree and somewhat
careless behavior of the American
student is certainly explained by
his carefree life in comparison with
all the troubles and hardships the
most foreigners had to undergo.
And they can be envied for that.
Maybe it is a good thing that they
enjoy their youth boisterously and
are not too philosophical and prob
lematic at so young an age.
And despite their noise at night,
their curious system of dating and
having recreation and the self-im
posed caste-system of Greeks and
non-Greeks they certainly are nice
and friendly fellows and good bud
dies. With gratitude most of us
tool; advantage of the academic
freedom and the various facilities
of the U of O. Special thanks
should go to the • faculty and the
advisers. I wonder what I will
write toward the end of the next
term.
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