Reality Shock
I was lost, and yes I still feel lost. Prior to deciding which college I should attend, I did some research on each university I got accepted into. As I was looking for information about UCSB, I discovered that it was a great university with a beautiful campus, cute guys and hot girls, and an ok academic standard. Just imagining living beside the ocean and having classes with a bunch of cute guys led me to decide to attend this college. However, after I started getting more involved with the community at UCSB, the reality just made me want to shoot myself.
Let’s talk about the beach and the ocean first. After I saw the photos on UCSB’s housing website, I was expecting a clean, beautiful beach that had students chilling there every weekend. Maybe the owner of the photos was skilled at using Photoshop, or else I wouldn’t be able to explain why the beach I have seen is so dirty and messy. Not only is the beach at UCSB ugly, it also smells so terrible and always has billions of bugs flying around. I’m pretty sure I will never go to our beach again unless they organize fun events.
The way Americans behave is also different from my expectation. I thought they, especially Californians, were supposed to be nice to everyone. However, I soon found out one mean characteristic shared by many of them, which is they only want to be friends with people who have sociability. If you were an introvert, it would be hard to get along with Americans well. They are not going to listen to you or try to be friends with you if you always look shy, scared or depressed. On the other hand, if you behave well in class and look cool all the time, they will just come talk to you and be friends with you.
Although the time I have spent at UCSB has not been too long, I already have witnessed many things that challenged my expectations. I hope that UCSB can clean and maintain the beach more often to ensure we have a beautiful campus as portrayed on its website. Also, I wish that people who read my article would be able to get along with other Americans better.
