English Literature

When I first came to the University of Michigan from China, I was struck by how different everyone was  not only from me - but from each other. The combination of ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and most importantly individuals made me think of a collage of images and ideas in abstract art that dont really seem to relate to one another. What I would find is that the college experience and the shared intention of all these different people would cause them to bond together as a kind of community.  We are from different culture, ethnicities, age groups, and geographic areas but we come together under a common interest in education. We live together, work together, experience the world together. As a community, we are as connected to one another like members of a small town who may not always get along but are connected. Within this larger community, where we may not know the majority of the students who share our experiences in higher education, there exist small communities that speak to our hearts and minds. The formal infrastructure of the college campus and administration, guarantees that we interact with a wide variety of people on many different topics. Belonging to the campus community is not an active decision but instead mainly one of circumstance. It is a unique community because though it will always hold a history for us, it is not permanent. We will move on to other communities and ways of life. The small clubs and informal groupsfriendships on the other hand are communities that bind us to our past, in some cases, and always to our futures. They explore the individual while the campus community is an all inclusive umbrella. It is important when looking at both of these communities to do so within the context of the other to see how they create, co-exist, and compliment one another in their purposes.

The university community is based upon a formal infrastructure to support the educational services and goals the university represents. We students belong to the university community through a combination of academic achievement, application, and business transaction. Once we have been accepted based on merit and the ability to pay our tuition and fees, our names become one of many within the larger university database. Like any government, it maintains our existence within the university community. The administration knows what classes we take, where we live, how much money is in our student accounts, even what books we have checked out from the library. It assigns us roommates, who may or may not be part of our smaller communities. The food in the vending machines and available to buy at the union is provided by the universitys administration. More importantly is that the university decides when we are prepared to no longer be part of its community and we graduate. When this happens, the umbrella of the university community will be replaced by several new umbrellas, rather than just one. It could be the umbrella of the new company, new town, or new university or the combination of all three. In the context of the university, I will enter into the new community of alumni rather than student. I imagine that being alumni will be less like the close community of campus life and more like the scattering of expatriates. The routines of daily life that I and my fellow students associate with our lives here will be no longer. I wont go to scheduled classes to learn about history or biology and I wont eat or meet with friends and classmates at the student union.

The temporary nature of the university community is perhaps one of its most important attributes because education is meant to be only a step. On the other hand, the small individual based communities we first come to belong to as part of the university community are not merely steps but a way for the student to realize and embrace themselves. Since these groups can allow us to connect to our culture and heritage they show more continuity. Other groups may bring to light interests that we never shared or realized we had before we met with others who felt the same way. The individual communities are the ones that persist and do not rely on administrative structure but instead desire for involvement.

I believe that without the individual experience of the smaller communities of like-minded people, the overall college community would be weakened. These small groups  clubs or groups based on background, gender, politics, religion, and similar interests or the closeness of friends and roommates  make up the heart of the university community. Having grown up in Shanghai, China, I felt adrift when I first came to campus. I had left behind my family, friends and all of my memories to come to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Even now, after Ive come to know the university and have made friends, I still feel myself to be a part of the community I left behind. In seeking out people who may share some of my background and interests, from the culture of my family and my childhood, I keep in touch with that part of myself. Many others within the university community do the same thing there are many, many groups based on culture or language. Friends from the same home town live together in the dorms people from two opposite ends of the same state will talk wistfully about the county fair.

In many ways, the university community and the small individual satellite communities resemble the relationship between a country and its individual states.  Like separate states within country there are central unifying ideals that become more localized in particular regions and towns. A citizen of the U.S. thinks of themselves first by their country and then as a citizen of their hometown or area. In the U.S., a New Yorker is of course an American but they feel more closely linked to New York in their understanding of the world. The sounds and sights are familiar, the people and foods feel like home. They know how to take the subway and what to order off the menu at the restaurant down the street. On the University of Michigan campus it is similar we students are all part of the campus community but in our smaller groups were find familiarity through the types of language we speak, our future careers, our politics, and other activities. Its how we connect at first but after several years of living in the larger university community, the membership of the smaller individual based communities seem to become leaner and less inclusive. I think that we become more aware, but at the same time more comfortable, with our individuality as we enter into the university community and then become part of our smaller sub-communities. Its that awareness and growing comfort that accounts for a lot of the altering of personality and interests that happen as part of the university community. It happens when we first become teenagers but we can expand ourselves more once we get away from the influences of our past. I know some people who came to college with a plan to be a new them but instead they seem to just be becoming more comfortable with who they were to begin with.
It is impossible when speaking about the community experience of the university to look at just the one type of community. The larger formal atmosphere of the university community and the smaller informal sub-communities based on experience and interests exist as compliments to each other.

Without the other, the definitions of each would be very different. Though they can, and do, exist separately the effect and influence they have on the individual students is at the core of the college experience. We come to the university community with a specific goal in mind, a certain degree and the experience that comes with the degree, and though it is only a temporary belonging it is also a kind of rite of passage that people who do not go to college cannot experience. It is like a country in itself. Within this country, we all are at home in smaller communities. The smaller groups that we belong to, communities of common interest, heritage, culture, and beliefs, are more long lasting because they include things about the individual that are equally important to who they are and who they will become. These groups are a concentrated version of the communities we belonged to as children and that we will be part of as adults. Between the two types of community, we students are able to gain both an education and a better understanding of ourselves before we go out into the larger world to make our mark.