America is Impressive, But There’s Room for Improvement

When I came to Columbia this fall it was my first time in New York City. I walked onto the Columbia campus not really knowing what to expect. As an international student, campus visits and tours, the staple of domestic admissions procedures, were luxuries I couldn’t afford, especially with rocketing fuel prices and air ticket fares. So all I had to go by of what to expect at Columbia—what it would look like and what the atmosphere would feel like—was a few scraps of information from prospectuses and a vivid imagination. I spent a nerve-wracking summer pondering on what I would find in Columbia—was it really as great as I had been told it would be? The prospect of great things excited me. This sense of the unknown, the expectancy, made moving into campus so exciting. It was a real adventure into the unknown, the distant yonder, when I ventured from sunny Australia to the greatest city in the world, New York.

Columbia did not disappoint me. Infused with an American spirit of openness and dialogue, Columbia was a place where my strange accent, or strange name, never acted as a barrier. Indeed, international students were highly valued as friends, classmates, and study companions. I was exposed to American openness in all its glory, as I live with and learn from all kinds of people, from all over the world. New York amazed me as well. Sydney, Australia, my home town, is no small city, yet the city of New York, and America in general, is built on a different scale. Manhattan is a city of such high density that miles of high rise apartments stretch into the distance and avenues are so straight one cannot discern their start or end. From the immensity of Central Park to the efficiency of the subway system, everything seemed to be conceived on a different scale. Even in California, everything from the extra large food serving sizes, to the 5-lane freeways to the size of the houses is amazing. Seeing New York, and the immense affluence and wealth of the core of American civilization, left me wide-eyed. It still stuns me today.

At the same time I learned of the size and diversity of America itself. Overseas, America may seem a giant cultural hegemony. Its symbols, such as Coca-Cola, Hollywood, Michael Jackson and evangelism, seem ubiquitous and representative. Yet when I came to this country, I discovered that nothing could be further from the truth. What surprised me when I flew through California was not so much how different California was from Australia so much as how different California was from New York. Within New York, the myriad of communities reminded me of a patchwork blanket, beautiful in how the diversity of the parts enriches the whole. At Columbia I met people from many regions across America, each with a unique background, and because of this I learnt how America itself is like the same patchwork blanket. Yet unity is created through shared fundamental values in liberty, democracy, tolerance and work ethic. Unity in diversity seemed to be the beauty of America and Columbia.

Which is not to say that things here are perfect. As much as I was surprised by the affluence of the USA, I was shocked by the inequality. Australia prides itself in being an egalitarian nation, first and foremost, firmly opposed to entrenched and degrading poverty. Though the inequality in itself is not bad, in America the existence of ghettoes with entrenched cycles of disadvantage, as large as to cover entire parts of Manhattan, is sad and shocking. Furthermore, while a strong education system is the engine of social mobility and opportunity in most western nations, the lack of a strong public school system in poorer areas is a shame. If we add in the violence that is generated by lax gun control laws, we end up with a lethal combination. I hope that the Columbia education being offered will enable my American classmates, and those who choose to remain in the states after graduation, to remedy these problems so unmerited in a prosperous society. The beauty of the Columbia education is that it will provide students with a global view, and perhaps enable them to take an idea or two from the home countries of their classmates.

That being said, my time so far at Columbia has been fantastic. I have enjoyed adding my voice to the discussion, in and out of the classroom. The international voice is crucial at a university that prides itself in developing the next generations of global leaders. We enrich ourselves by listening to and engaging with people who are so different, and yet so fundamentally similar, to ourselves. Given this context, financial aid to international students must keep on growing, especially since undergraduate admissions for international students is not need-blind. Columbia is a great place because of the caliber and diversity of the people it attracts. It’s what makes it great, and continues to amaze me, especially as I reflect on what a great choice I made in coming here.

The author is a Columbia College first-year.