The Culture Of American College - 2371 Words

Cultures vary tremendously throughout the world and within many of these cultures are sub-cultures that do not necessarily operate under the same standards for example, the culture of American college students. â€Å"Subcultures, according to Clark and Trow, represent clusters of attitudes, norms, and models of behaviors rather than groups of people† (Warren, 1968). It is hard for someone to not have any ethnocentric bias to a culture they have not yet been part of or witnessed first hand. Transitioning from the subculture I have grown up in my entire life, to the American college culture was a huge change. Before attending college I did not have a strong ethnocentric bias to the college culture because I had already known people who had†¦show more content†¦Prior to attending WSU, I did not give much merit to the information that I received about what college would be like unless I was being told by someone who had reliable first hand experience and especially so if they do or had attended WSU themselves. I would always hear people saying that WSU is a party school, and I think that is due to the fact that WSU has a lower GPA requirements than some schools and people assume it is full of the people who were not accepted into UW. Although that is the case for many students here, I know a great deal of students who attend WSU and were also accepted by UW and other schools as well. The state of Washington has its own subculture of the United States, and within the state of Washington there are many different subcultures, both big and small (Lieske, 1993). Once you go from eastern Washington to western Washington there is a massive change in the subculture of the people. The culture of western Washington is more liberal than in eastern Washington where people on average are more conservative (Lieske, 1993). As well as political views and other factors, there is a huge separation between supporters of UW and WSU. Living on the western side of Washington I did not know that the WSU culture and pride was so strong out here. I had thought that everyone prefers UW because it is considered a better school and located in Seattle, but one I arrived out here I was shocked by the pride that Cougs have. I had no