This semester, I accidentally became “the study abroad experience” – but for everyone else.
Everyone talks about studying abroad in college.
The friendships. The immersion. The new sights. The food.
But what about being on the other end of it?
The local friends who become cultural immersion for exchange students.
The ones who show the unique sights, and take foreign students out to local food spots and explain the culture.
That became me.
I accidentally ended up living in a house full of European exchange students.
After my roommates of 2 years graduated from Berkeley, I needed a new place for my last semester at Cal.
Nearly all student housing in Berkeley have year-long leases, typically August to July.
I didn’t want to be stuck paying rent after winter graduation (I’m graduating a semester early), so I ended up in the co-ops.
The easiest way to explain the co-ops is the following: imagine living in a large 100-person hippie commune from the 1960s but set in the modern day.
At the co-ops, I became acquainted with people from everywhere.
A French guy and two freshmen from Shanghai as suitemates.
A Japanese exchange student and an Indian-American therapist-now-grad student in his late 40s (he could be my dad) as roommates.
And many more random characters.
Like the Danish dude I played Scrabble with on a random school night.
The Norwegian grad student I explained American inequality to.
The Singaporean girl going to university in London, and now studying abroad in Berkeley.
The Spanish guy looking for hole-in-the-wall food recommendations in Oakland.
Within days, I ended up befriending a Spanish girl, a Pakistani-British girl, and a community college student from Irvine.
As of now, we have been doing board game nights every night after class. Games like Catan, Jenga, Scrabble, and whatever we can find lying around the house.
During the daily communal dinner at the co-ops, we would debate everything Americans and I would think as normal. Tipping culture. The 2nd Amendment. The legalization of marijuana.
One night in SF, I shocked them when I tipped 15% in addition to the meal price.
The exchange students looked at each other and asked: “why pay more than what’s on the menu?”
And I said, “Because America doesn’t pay their waiters enough to live.”
“That’s horrible, but why should we have to pay someone’s wage? That’s the company’s responsibility. People in Europe can live on a waiter’s salary.”
And I said, “Not in America.”
They were shocked when I explained the price of American higher education. Tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and student debt are normal in America. Their college education in Europe and study abroad cost their parents nothing.
I left them enraged at the idea of medical debt. I explained that millions of Americans go into bankruptcy for extended hospital stays. The exchange students called that inhumane and brutal. That same hospital stay would be almost free in Europe.
These conversations made me think about how Americans lack the same level of government aid compared to their European counterparts.
Every other developed country has universal healthcare, so why can’t we?
Why do we make college cost an arm and a leg, while others see it as a human right and make it free?
Living with European exchange students made me see America from a different lens.
And now I wonder if the USA would be like Europe if it wasn’t as individualistic or profit-driven.
Did American culture get us to this point?
Has greed, capitalism, and individualism come too far in America?
That’s a question I’ve started to ask.
However, despite their blunt criticisms, they told me there’s so much to love about the USA.
They reminded me of what I took for granted from this country.
The weather. The ambition.
The culture of optimism. The cultural diversity. The variety of cuisines.
The vast amount of land to explore. The natural beauty. The open road.
The convenience. And the opportunities I can’t find elsewhere.
Hearing them criticize their own countries made me realize how every country is a double-edged sword. What makes a country good is what makes it struggle.
The USA’s individualism and ambition leads to innovation and wealth unseen anywhere else. The same leads to some of the worst wealth inequality in the world and subpar safety nets.
Spain’s love of living slowly and work-life balance leads to a great quality of life and family oriented culture. But it leads to sluggish economic productivity and a high youth unemployment rate.
Japan’s obedient and polite culture leads to low crime, agreeable people, and clean streets. But it also leads to a strict hierarchical society, horrible mental health, and brutally long work hours.
Living with exchange students really hammered the idea that no place is perfect.
There are trade-offs to every place. And it is all a matter of preference and where you grew up.
My current living situation is fascinating. Every day, I learn something new and different.
That’s what I live for.
It’s definitely been a great introduction to the real (and vast) world that I still need to explore.
I came to Berkeley to study economics and psychology. I’m leaving, having studied the world — from my living room.
Berkeley made me a citizen of the world.