Times Mirror Square

Americans love a lot of things - football games, hot dogs, people with accents. But we also have a very traditional concept of lifetime milestones. You graduate high school, go right to college, finish in four years, and hopefully spend a semester or year abroad, so you have the opportunity to do some traveling on Mom and Dad's dime. After graduation, it is time to get a job or continue to graduate school. Everyone should have a plan, an agenda.

But for Danish students, it is very different. Last night, I attended an orientation for Danish students who are planning on studying abroad in the United States. I learned a great deal about the Danish idea of being a "young adult," and got to see the differences between the life of young Danish students and my own higher education experiences.

The typical Dane becomes independent at the age of 18. If you still live under the roof of your parents, chances are you will be paying them rent. Many people work part-time while in school, and it is not unusual at all to take gap time for travel and exploration. But, once you get to uni (as they call it), you specialize immediately. There is no general education or liberal arts curriculum. You go for a specific topic, and spend an average of three years completing your undergraduate work.

I always thought that studying abroad we a mostly American idea - send your kids to Europe so that the can drink even though they are under 21, and let them have some adventure time before they need to get serious and move into the rest of their adult lives. But Danish people study abroad as well.

The group that I met last night was a large delegation to Barnard College, uptown from my home university, NYU. They are coming to the States for a variety of reasons - more advanced classes, the opportunity to see New York and explore a different continent, to decide if they want to pursue a higher degree overseas. They study abroad for many of the same reasons we do - we just think it is strange that they would be so eager to come spend a few months in America, of all places. For us, Europe is exotic, a far-off land with sexy accents, chicer fashion, and a much richer cultural history. We romanticize what lays across the Atlantic Ocean, and create a fantasy about diving into a world of jetsetters and magically becoming more fashionable and classy.

But it works in reverse to a certain degree. Europeans also have ideas of stereotypes that may exist in our country. I met a Danish fellow who asked what my favorite line dance was, since he has been to a bar outside of Chicago that had line dancing on Tuesday nights. One of the girls who is going to Barnard looked at me very seriously and asked, "All I know about Americans is from America's Next Top Model. Is that really bad?"

Maybe it is kind of bad. But we're no better. As one of the speakers at the orientation said that the whole purpose of studying abroad is to expand your cultural horizons and to prepare yourself for the global world that we live in today. This is when I realize that Europeans are real people too, and this is when Europeans realize that I'm not a cowboy, nor am I particularly rowdy at sporting events. Networking with international students is a way of noting and learning to explain the differences and similarities between different groups of people, and fostering understanding and knowledge, rather than furthering ignorance, when addressing the international community. This is really proving to be an excellent opportunity to get to know people who not like me, and yet really not so different after all.