Silfee+Reading+Response+3

In this weeks reading of //My Freshman Year// Nathan discussed how people of different cultures view American students when they come to school here in America. The conclusion that I have drawn from this reading is that I don't think I understand American students either. I'm from a very small town and a small school district where everyone knows everyone and their business, and everyone is close with every teacher and all students in their class. When I came here to Bloomsburg I found that it's not quite as easy to make friends here. At first I felt very out of my element and found myself only hanging around with my roommate which really bothered me because where I'm from I had many friends and I hung out with different groups of people all the time. I'm usually a very outgoing person who likes to meet new people and make new friends but I'm a little out of practice at actually making friends because I knew everyone at my school within the first two or three years of being there, but I also met my very best friend within the first week of school. From reading this section I realized that it isn't just me that feels this way, however it makes me wonder if other American students from different areas have this same problem, or if I'm just similar to the minority groups because of where I'm from. For //The Mind at Work// I chose to read chapter four, about vocational students who are put into the vocational program because they got themselves into some kind of trouble and are put there as part of their probation. However, I don't really understand what this particular section of the reading is supposed to be teaching us about culture. I know that people in such situations end up living completely different lives than other kids of their age that maybe went on to further their education and do something better with their lives, but I don't see how this relates to their culture. On the other hand, I can tie this back to the introduction of the reading that talks about the intelligence of these kinds of people. The fact that they got themselves into these situations shows that they just simply didn't care enough to try to do anything else with their lives before they got into trouble. Now that they are being made to do something, and they know what this kind of trouble could make their lives end up being like, I feel like this makes them want to try for their future. Like in the case of Dwayne. Maybe before he got into trouble he just didn't have anything that he liked to do and was good at, and that resulted in him getting himself into trouble. Now that he knows he can do something and is good at it he strives to do well and get approval from Mr. G.