<p>wow, doughmom, and I grew up in Seattle in the 70’s.</p>
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<p>Hey, did you go to my school?</p>
<p>But in A2, I am closer to the bottom rung.</p>
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<p>A2 as in ANN ARBOR?! Wow … I know a LOT of students there, and they are most definitely not like the ones you describe. I know so many public school kids from lower to middle class backgrounds who are at UM. (Of course, I have a kid at Vanderbilt, and that, my friend, is preppy!)</p>
<p>For me, college was similar to Bunsen Burner’s experience. I still marvel at how incredibly bright my classmates were, and I wonder what happened to the really bright ones who flunked out for various reasons.</p>
<p>girls who slept with their professors - old, unattractive ones, even!</p>
<p>real hippies </p>
<p>people who actually ate sprouts (it was the 70’s…)</p>
<p>a conservative jewish intellectual</p>
<p>^ or professors who hit on us…ugh</p>
<p>I forgot to add that I met my first (and only person) with twelve fingers. He was a prof and in our first class with him,… as we started to notice the guy had 6 perfectly formed fingers on his hand, we did double takes…some of us questioning the effects of what we smoked the night before. Someone actually blurted out the question of whether he had 12 toes (he didn’t).</p>
<p>Sequoia, lol!</p>
<p>I had a rather disturbed professor… I eventually learned that he had lost his wife and drank too much. It made me very sad.</p>
<p>kelsmom: I don’t think the kinds of kids I described are the majority, but when I first got here (and even a little bit today) I think they attracted a bit more of my attention than may have been warranted just because it’s SO bizarre to me! I’d never met anybody like that. I had a kid in one of my first meetings of a discussion course who was so FLOORED that some people actually survive on less than 50k a year that he had to take a moment to collect himself. I was just as shocked by his behavior as he was by the poverty statistics we were looking at! He literally could not believe there were people who only make 20k.</p>
<p>But while most kids don’t have that kind of attitude, most kids here do come from families that are significantly wealthier than mine-- and my family, when considering national statistics (ie not taking cost of living into account), makes an upper-middle class income. So it’s just a very different world here than back home, where we are around the median instead of about 50k per year beneath it! </p>
<p>But there’s another one for you: I don’t think I ever met someone with a REAL pair of uggs before I came here. Senior year I finally caved and bought a pair of tan suede boots because I had fallen /so/ far off trend. And I got a pea coat, too. Still don’t have a smart phone or ipod, though, or a longchamp tote, or anything northface, so I am not a REAL michigan student yet. :P</p>
<p>a black person
an openly gay person
a woman who had had an abortion
people who smoked pot</p>
<p>A Nobel laureate (several, actually).</p>
<p>lots of Jewish people - my Psych professor canceled the first class due to the Jewish holidays, an anorexic, a girl who posed for Playboy and was subsequently kicked out of her sorority.</p>
<p>I met some friends that became lifelong friends to this day…Jack Daniels,Johnny Walker,Bud Wiser,Jim Beam,Stella Artois, and of course, Mary Jane. ;)</p>
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<p>'79. I’m not sure about the tennis (I paid zero attention to sports in college) - the guy I’m thinking of dated a friend of mine who was Puerto Rican and Catholic, and the two families were <em>not</em> happy!</p>
<p>Freshman year ('78), 6 hours from home, knowing no one, strange city/campus, first guy I talk to in Dorm TV area ended up being born in my hometown and his dad went to school with my dad before moving away. Good beginning and we’re still friends. Also coming from a very, very whitebread town, met many folks from different ethnicities and learn to like many international cuisines.</p>
<p>I went to a poor college so most people were like me but I had never met a Jewish person. I also remember that one of my friends had a lesbian roommate and moved her girlfriend into their room. My friend was cool with it, we tried so hard to be unfazed by things lol! I also had never met any one from a Middle Eastern background and had never tried any ethnic food except for Italian.</p>
<p>My D goes to a school which has a rich preppy reputation. There is a rumor that to pledge a certain fraternity your father needs to make at least 200K. My D’s roommate couldn’t understand why they had a rule like that, cause everybody’s father made 200K! My D told her that lots of people didn’t and we lived a nice life on a lot less than that. Her roommate had also never been to Walmart. Her parents made a trip to one to check it out and make sure that it wasn’t too sketchy lol!</p>
<p>At my first college, a small private in Maryland:</p>
<p>preppies
people who played lacrosse (had never heard of it)
frat/sorority types</p>
<p>At my second college, UMich:</p>
<p>people who had never met Jewish people before
students having affairs with and marrying professors
people from Michigan</p>
<p>wealthy, entitled kids
people who played lacrosse and field hockey(although my mom told me that she played field hockey when she was in high school - it took her 18 years to tell me that?!)
a lotus car</p>
<p>White Americans who thought of themselves as “Italian” or “Irish” or “Polish.”</p>
<p>A Japanese person.</p>
<p>Somebody who played ice hockey.</p>
<p>Met my first alcoholic (to my knowledge). A girl on my dorm floor (a class above) drank constantly, weekdays/weekends/morning/noon and night. Really sad.</p>
<ul>
<li>a Palestinian who told me the Palestinian side of the Middle East problem - I’d only heard the Israeli version</li>
<li>a girl with bulemia</li>
<li>a guy with a gambling problem</li>
<li>a friend from Nepal who kept turning up in strange places (ie. hitchhiking in NoVa at midnight?)</li>
<li>legit Nigerian bankers</li>
<li>undergrad professors who are still my friends 30 years later</li>
</ul>