| My d is in freshman honors this year and has enjoyed meeting many intelligent, diverse, passionate people through the program this year. Her honors courses this year have been both challenging and fun. She's enjoyed some great discussions in these classes. She's also enjoyed the honor's teas and has gotten involved in the honor's executive board. It has been a good base to make new friends. Everyone she's met has different interests and strengths, so they all seem to enjoy getting to know each other and help each other. My d's passion is Asian languages and culture, she is fluent in Japanese, but as she says, "I don't speak math." One of her best new friends in the honors program is a math whiz, but has needed some help in his Japanese language class. D has needed help in a Calculus class. It's worked out well for both of them. She's also met a lot of fun, intelligent kids in her other classes. Luckily most of d's classes this year have been on the small size. She came into Carolina w/ a lot of credit hours from AP exams, so that helped her avoid some of the larger freshman type classes. Her Asian languages and culture classes (Japanese and Chinese) have been small and she's had the opportunity to get to know the professors/instructors as well as students, a good number who are Asian-American, many taking the classes to improve their language/writing skills or to learn more about culture.
Like your D, my D doesn't get into the "party scene", and is somewhat conservative, too. She has been able to find "like minds" at Carolina, especially through the honors' program.
D is IS, and white, but has not seen "IS verses OOS" problems or racial, ethnic divides. Probably half of the kids she now considers friends are OOS, and a good number of them are ethnic, mostly Asian-American.
I'd have to check with D, but if she is available during your visit to Carolina, I'm sure she would be happy to meet you all and talk about honors program; help w/ a tour and/or anything else you might be interested in. It might also be possible for her to arrange for your D to meet some of her Asian-American friends and hear 1st hand their experiences at Carolina. Please PM me if you are interested. |