racial dynamics in college

fabrizio
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:19:14 +0000

This really depends on the school. At my alma mater, Georgia Tech, there was some self-segregation, but that wasn’t the only dynamic. Yes, in the dining halls, you would see Asians (all kinds) together and blacks together. But one time when the dining hall was particularly crowded, the only open seat was by an all-black group, and when I sat there, I did not feel as if I were treated like an “other.” They didn’t suddenly stop talking just because I sat there; matter of fact, when I joked with them, they joked back.

One of the larger Christian organizations is mostly Asian, but I know many white students who attend their sessions, and as far as I could tell, it was pretty mixed in that regard.

Lastly, in my capstone course, there were enough black and Asian students to have two all-black and two all-Asian teams. But when we were asked to voluntarily form our own groups, there was only one all-Asian team, and that was because they were all exchange students from the same country. The rest of us formed teams based on who we thought we would work best with, not on who shared our skin color the best.

So really, it depends on the school. I don’t expect all schools to be like that, for better or worse.