Geraldo Pereira: "The world is our campus"

I thought this day would never come, but here I am, in college.I’ve waited for this moment a long time, but it is quite different from anything I could have imagined before. I know it’s a cliché to say our lives very oftendon’t follow what we had expected, but this assumption is exactly what describes my life. In 2008, I suddenly saw myself attending the first major boarding school in Brazil.I was part of a bold project to innovate the unfortunately flawed education of our country. These were three years of intense academics and life-changing friendships, which meant a watershed in my life, greatly defining me as the person who I am now. And I could tell that would be a unique experience from day one.

I’ve always heard the common quote “how you see the events which happen in your life is often more important that the events themselves”. I had this in mind when I got off the plane in New York, in the effort to grasp the meaning of pursuing my undergraduate degree abroad. I keep asking myself what this truly represents, drawing hypothesis and playing a game with my own life. What if I had gone to São Paulo, or maybe taken the risk of going to college in Brasília? Well, that’s now past, and I could finally find definite answers as soon as I stepped into Lafayette College, as an official freshman of the class of 2015- after a 30-hour trip from Brazil. 

I arrived in the US on Sunday, the 21st of August. Before that, though, I had a crazy experience in Bogotá, Colombia. I had an 8-hour layover there, and of course I got out of the airport to explore the city. It was cold and drizzling, and besides that, my Spanish was rusty. But I survived, drinking Colombian coffee and buying a warm bufanda in Montserrat. As I went back to the airport by taxi, the radio was on, broadcasting the final game of the Sub-20 World Cup – Brazil X Portugal- which was taking place in that evening in Bogotá. What a coincidence, I thought. And eventually, as I was boarding the plane to the US, I knew Brazil had won. A great signal to the beginning of a new life for me. 

Our orientation in Lafayette was simply amazing. ISA, the International Students Association, organized a bunch of activities so that we all could start getting used to the college environment and bonding with our classmates from every corner of the world. Bulgarians, Serbians, Chinese, Kenyans, Japanese, South Africans, and a Brazilian, all together having (fake) dumplings and enduring an earthquake and a hurricane (no, there was no tornado to finish off). Definitely a great start in America! 

After an academic information section and even another session on culture shock, we were ready to start our independent adventure throughout the beautiful Lafayette campus, with IDs and keys in my hand.It does not stretch for miles, but it is perfect for the 2,500 undergraduates. Lafayette was founded in 1826, and is among the country’s oldest colleges- most of its buildings are more than a century old. There’s no hazing during orientation, but another thing would surprise me instead: the amount of homework in the very first week. I’m taking four courses this semester –French, Intl. Politics, Order & Justice Intl., Calculus- I had to read maybe more than 150 pages in a couple of days. Besides an independent study on Chinese! 

Higher education in the US can be very different from attending college in Brazil. Here, the student is not usually required to declare his or her major until the end of the sophomore (2nd) year. Another difference is that most students take about four or five courses each semester (or term), instead of having several courses –the same goes about high school in both countries. In a Liberal Arts College, like Lafayette, the students are even required to take courses outside their major field. I, for example, will have to take two courses in science in order to graduate, probably Psychology. To be successful in academics, one has to handle well the heavy reading load and the intense writing program. Nonetheless, Lafayette offers much more: there are more than 200 clubs and organizations on campus, among foreign languages, sports, hobbies and community service. Most students join these clubs to meet new people and engage in the campus life. 

So far, I’ve just had four days of classes and it’s been two weeks since I arrived in the US. So much has happened already that I feel like I’ve been living here for a long time. I know that Lafayette is the next life-changing experience of my life, and it’s hard to put my feelings into words to express how excited I am. I know that this is a challenge, and it’s up to me to live it to the best of my ability. I guess that the difference now is that instead of supporting friends from every corner of Brazil, they are from every corner of the planet. The world is our campus.

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