Voluntary Segregation in Universities
By: Vivi Friend
Tags: Discrimination, University, Inclusivity, Cultural Differences, Education Reform

In my first year at university, I was trying really hard to make my Scottish classmates like me and I could see other foreigners trying to do the same. I felt like I’m a pushover or a people pleaser and I wasn’t even enjoying their company that much because they weren’t my friends, I was worried they will judge my accent, I was embarrassed when I didn’t know their own cultural references or couldn’t understand slang. It was honestly pretty stressful and I soon gave up, I accepted I’m not good enough for the Scots and settled for my foreign friends who were much more similar to me.

Photo by Omar Flores on Unsplash

Halfway through the year, anyone could visually see the experience. The big lecture halls were split down the middle between Scottish and foreign students. We all noticed but never spoke about it, we just accepted we don’t have enough in common. Most of my friends were Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Polish and Romanians. Even in our little divided space, we divided even further into Easter Europe, Southern Europe, China etc. Don’t ask me how it was on the Scottish side because I’ve never made it there. One thing I will say is that I don’t think it was necessarily by nationality, it was the place we grew up. We had a few classmates that were half Scottish half -any other country- and they always ended up staying on the side they grew up in. For example, they would stay with the Scottish students if they grew up in Scotland or with the foreigners if they grow up abroad. I’m not sure if our little chair games sound silly, but I found the phenomenon fascinating.

Moving to Spain

By my 3rd year in university, I had accepted I don’t fit in in the Scottish society and I decided to do my Erasmus exchange in Spain, to see if Spain could be a new home to me. I was sure this will be better, I had Spanish friends in Scotland and they were more similar to me so I was sure this time I will fell at home.

Except not, I would have been sad but I found this new phenomenon even more fascinating. I was now friends with Scottish and English students, the university halls were once again split down the middle but it was now the Spanish students that were all on one side and now I had people from the UK on my side as foreigners. I realised that it was never about our cultural differences, it was our mindset and lifestyles. Foreigners were keen to travel and meet people, usually lived with other students, were experiencing similar cultural shocks, while locals were in their own space, used to the way things are and had their set routines.

I started taking it less personal after that, stopped assuming I’m just not good enough for the locals and while I still didn’t make any local friends in university things changed once I got a job.

Finally making friends with the locals

My coworkers are the loveliest people and I am so grateful I got to experience actually making friends with people from Scotland, but I still often think about the time in university when we could have all really become friends had we been able to communicate better. I did try a lot and for awkward young people, I think we can’t put too much blame on ourselves. Sometimes I think maybe the local students also felt shy and awkward to make friends with foreigners.

I think the solution is in the hands of the universities to mix the two groups up, ask us to engage in conversations and find our similarities. I know this is done a lot through societies, but the problem with societies is that they are either creating more divide (International Society, Erasmus Network) or they are too formal (Debates, Business societies). I was part of all these societies and I do know they add value, but they need a stronger element of inclusivity and breaking down formalities to really allow people to know each other. Of course, student me was even struggling to vocalize my problem at the time, but I would have many ideas on how to improve this if I had to go back.

You have to live with other foreigners, preferably from your own region! Mine is Easter Europe.

I am convinced the university also knew our differences and often enabled them. I’ll give an example to paint the picture. When I first moved to the UK I got my accommodation in halls, my 5 other roommates were 2 Romanians, 2 Bulgarians and 1 Lithuanian. We were also the only Eastern Europeans in that particular accommodation hall. The odds of us just happening to be put together are very slim. I don’t condemn the university and I do not think this is discrimination, but as I said in the title, this is done voluntarily. When we first apply for accommodation we are asked to fill in a form with our hobbies, interest and lifestyle. It is a pretty good way to match people and make sure they get along. I did really like most of my flatmates and of course we had a lot in common, we came from similar cultures. It does make me wonder if we lived with Scottish people from day one would we have integrated better in the community? Or we would have decided much earlier on that our cultural differences are too big to build a friendship?

There is also an age difference!

Another thing I noticed and many of my friends pointed out is that we just found Scottish people too immature. I was 19 when I moved to Scotland and turned 20 two months later, that’s just because we start school around 7–8 in Romania. Most of the local students were 17–18, a couple of years make a big difference when you’re a teenager/ young adult. Add the fact that once we moved we have to manage everything on our own, we don’t have our family there and everything is new to us. It makes you grow up really fast!

Drinking is part of the culture!

Scottish people are known for drinking and I don’t think that can be a huge culture clash. I don’t drink much but I have spent hours and hours in pubs with Scottish friends while overdosing on tap water. (Makes you very hydrated and gives your skin a nice glow the day after- highly recommend tap water pub crawls!)

When you’re a teenager tho, that’s a different story! Scottish students were for the first time away from home and just turning 18 so it makes sense they wanted to drink, party and have fun. On the other hand… me and my friends had already been 18 for a while, drinking laws were not that strict and it wasn’t such a big deal. We were already over the drinking and clubbing phase before it began.

I believe the solution to all these problems is communication. Engage the students with each other, mix them up in groups and make sure they are comfortable speaking with each other. They need to be assured the other group won’t judge them and see the benefits of facing their fear of unknown. I know most students would not be so keen on the idea of “forced fun” and it might add extra stress in the beginning, but I will give an example once again to illustrate why I think this works. In all the schools I’ve been to in Romania the groups would usually split as well, the reason was always different. When we were young it was by grades, students who were top of the class were sitting in the front, bottom of the class in the back. In high school, it was simply by the seating we chose on the first day. The one class where this wasn’t the case was one teacher who asked us to rotate desk mates every week. We weren't big fans of it and we couldn’t wait for the weeks we got to sit with our friends, but in time we all became friends. We learned to accept our differences and discovered our similarities by spending time together and influencing each other.

Thank you for reading and I would be very curious to hear your thoughts on the topic! :)

Vivi