I am very lucky to have gotten the chance to study in US for semester.
America is a country where people have freedom of expression. Very likely, no one will judge you here. People have freedom of expression when it comes to their clothing, their arguments, their private life and sharing their point of view. We all see USA as a melting pot which means that we see diversity of people leading to diversity of cultures here.
In my experience, I have found education in United States very organized and balanced compared to that in Pakistan. In States, workload is well spread across the whole semester. I am a Business Management major, and I don’t see tons of assignments, case-studies, quizzes, exams and presentations here. Professors here try to keep their course as much easy and learning intensive as they can. Professors try to minimize the student-teacher barriers. I personally met different professors in their offices and every time I left them, I used to carry some good tips for a better practical life with me. Professors try to keep the classroom atmosphere very casual. I remember, on my first class of Geography, my Professor came in shorts, again showing freedom of expression and a casual atmosphere in class. These are the things that I don’t see very often back in Pakistan.
I have travelled to Pittsburgh many times in the past two months. To experience, life in one of the very busy city in States was again fun. While I was walking around with my bunch of international friends on the streets of Pittsburgh, almost 90% of the people (majority Americans) who passed by us used to say these common lines “How are you doing?”, “How’s it going?” Etc. These lines show that although people live a busy life but still they care about people around them. In Pittsburgh, we went on a “Ducky Tour” and that was real fun. We had a tour of whole Pittsburgh. Also, on the “Ducky Tour”, we were around ten international students and all the Americans on the bus were appreciating us and asking all of us about our countries showing they respect different cultures.
Personally, there a lot of things I have learned over the course of my semester here. And I am really excited to get back to LUMS. See you in spring!
Haseeb Ashfaq
Class of 2018