different Nicholas experiences culture shock in America Worlds Beginning a college career at a new school would have been intimidating for most students.The pressure of figuring out what building a first class was in or trying to understand the social club process could be frightening. But what if a student were from a completely different country where these activities were not a part of everyday life? Sophomore Laura Nicholas moved to the U.S. from Kenya to attend Harding University. Nicholas said that there was definitely a culture shock every time she experienced something new. “Here,there is somuch to be involved in and somuch to do,”Nicholas said. “I know that during my freshman year especially, I was really overwhelmed with all the opportunities.” Culture shock was something most students could experience anytime they stepped out of their comfort zone and into a different way of life. Nicholas said that one extreme aspect of culture shock was the pace at which Americans lived life compared to those in Kenya. “I think the most shocking thing about this country and college culture was the pace of life,”Nicholas said.“Back home, people are not as driven by the clock.Things are more relaxed, and I feel like people are more willing to enjoy the things they are involved in. So that’s still hard to get used to.” A second aspect of culture shock for Nicholas was trying to relate with other students about American pop culture. “An adjustment for me personally was learning how to relate to a teen culture of movies and music that I had never heard of and people were talking about all the time,”Nicholas said. “That kind of thing is really not that important to me anyways, but it was hard to figure out what to say to people sometimes.” Being away from her family was difficult, but Nicholas said she managed to find people at Harding to connect with. “Obviously, I really miss my family, but I think in a lot of ways I’m able to connect with people here in a more complete way because my home is so far away,”Nicholas said.“For example, lots of people here have a hard time plugging into a church in Searcy because they ‘already have a home church’ that they’ve grown up in. I don’t have those connections in this country, so I’m better able to jump in here on some levels. Also, not having my family here forces me to rely in a very real way on God and on my friends here to be my support system.” Nicholas said she had quite the experience while at Harding, not always seeing the easiest days in her life, but ones that taught her so much while on campus. “Overall, it’s been a crazy, hard, not fun a lot of the time, but very, very good experience,”Nicholas said. [Katie White] 86 [people]
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