My life...

Hi, my name is Venessa Gonzalez and I am 19 years old.. I am so glad I get to talk to student from another country. I know that college life can be very diverse and interesting anywhere you travel. I am from Tucson, Arizona, so it wasn’t too hard deciding that I wanted to attend the U of A. I am currently a freshman at the University of Arizona. I am taking 4 classes my first semester: English 101, Indv 102, Math 110, and Ecol 182. My major is pre-pharmacy, I want to be a pharmacist so bad, and I hope that I will get there one day. Pharmacists work at a pharmacy, where they give medicine to sick people. At first, I was so scared to come to the U of A, because I didn’t know anyone and I was used to a smaller high school this school is huge. The U of A is such a fun place to be at. There are many restaurants, a game room, and even a shopping center. The U of A is a wide spread area, one of my classes is a fifteen minute walk. I am finally starting to get a grasp of everything that it has to offer. My daily schedule is pretty busy. I have a job that I work at two days a week. On the weekends I am always hanging out with my boyfriend and family. I love to go shopping and out to eat. Right now I am getting ready for Halloween. Here in America, on October 31 people of all ages dress up as anyone they want and go to different parties. This year I am going to be a sailor. I went to a Halloween party yesterday at a nursing home where my mom works. A nursing home is where older sick people are taken care of by nurses and doctors. Anyway, the party was so much fun, I helped serve food and run a game booth. Today, it is my boyfriend’s birthday, he is turning 19, and we are going out to eat with friends and family to a restaurant called Texas Roadhouse. Also, later on there is going to be another Halloween party at a family friend’s house. This week I have two tests, so I will probably be studying for a couple of hours. College has been pretty fun so far, I can’t wait for the adventures ahead.

My life at UofA!

Hi! My name is Ashley Thibault and I am a Freshman at the University of Arizona. I live on campus in the dorms and I love it! I am living with my best friend from elementary school we didn’t go to high school together but we stayed really good friends so we decided to room together. They say don’t room with your best friend, but it is actually working out really well. We live in Apache/Santa Cruz and it is a smaller dorm and our room is quite small but it actually is not that bad. Everyone said I was going to go crazy living in the dorms because it is so loud and hard to study and stuff but really it is not that bad at all. I actually enjoy it! We live in an all girls wing with 15 other girls and our room is way cute. The worst part about dorm life is doing the dishes because we do them in the bathroom sink and neither of us ever want to do them so they just pile up! We got really lucky and we are in a wing that is pretty quiet and even if I want to go to bed way early I can because it is not noisy at all. It is so so nice.
The food on campus is pretty good, there is a pretty good variety but it still gets kinda old. I live about 2 hours away from school so when I do come home and have a home cooked meal it is the best thing ever! Do you live on campus where you go to school? What are your dorms like and what is the food like there? We have this place called Highland Market across the street from my dorm and it is so good. There is a deli and you can tell them how to make any sandwich you want, they have breakfast burritos every morning and night (which by the way are fantastic) they also have your basic groceries and best of all, Seattle Espresso which is a coffee place. I love it because you can use your meal plan card here. A meal plan is basically how you buy all of your meals here. We have a CatCard and you use it for everything (to get into your dorm, to do laundry, vending machines and meals) there is money that my parents on each semester and it just works like a debit card and you pay for all of your on-campus meals that way. Do you guys have something like this at your school, it seems like every university here does it a little different but it basically does the same thing.
I don’t have my own car on campus, but my roommate Lindsey does and out really good friend does and he gave me his spare key so I can use his car whenever (which is so wonderful and it is a really nice car I love it!). But you don’t really need to use your car on campus only when you would want to go somewhere else in Tucson. I usually bike or walk to get around campus. I love walking to class now that the weather is nicer, but sometimes I still bike. Unfortunately I have not exactly had the best luck with my bike. The first week of school I totally ate it in front of a bunch of people. I was trying to be all cool and go up the curb on my bike but, I made the mistake of trying to go up the curb while I was parallel to it (never try that) this obviously did not work out too well and fell off and hit another person on their bike and needless to say…it was embarrassing. To add the the bike drama I have hit couples walking a few times, almost blown over on a really windy day, I always forget where I locked my bike so I spend like 10 min looking like an idiot searching for my bike…ya me and the bike just have problems. Oh and to make matters worse my bike seat got stolen last week, I could not believe it. Who steals a bike seat? So now whenever I leave my bike I take my new bike seat with me because I am so scared that some rude person is going to steal it! How do you get around campus? Do a lot of people have bikes there? Has your bike seat ever gotten stolen?
Well, I hope this kind of gave you an idea about life here in Tucson, Arizona! I really love it here college is so fun, and classes are difficult and I really have to work hard but I still have tons of fun hanging out with friends, playing sports, and living in Tucson!

Hello. From Ji-soo Kim

Hello. my name is Ji-soo Kim from South Korean, but I graduated high school from New Zealand. I'm a freshman of UoA. I've heard you want to hear about how life is like a student in the USA, so here I am, but I'm a freshman of UoA and I've only been in the university for 3 months. Well, there are so many class buildings I'vs never even have chance to been to, but I will try my best to explain what it is like in here.
I was really surprised when I first came here!
There was an international Orientation day on the first day. Hundreds of students from all over the world gathered together in one place. It was interesting to know people from different countries all over the world. I was surprised that there were so many countries I've never even heard about. There were more exchange students than international students. I think UoA is well organized with exchange programs. You might want to try too!
Another thing that surprised me was the size of the class! One of my class have approximately 500 students. The class that big use the remote control called i-clicker to answer the questions professor asks and check the attandance. Sure I didn't have that for my high school :) Teachers just need to call names to check the attandance or ask a question.
Anyway I'm enjoying my university life. To be honest, I still get lost sometimes. Surely the USA is a big country. Hope I didn't bored you. See you!

Peter Somoza

Greetings, my name is Peter and I am a student at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, AZ, in the United States. My major is biochemistry and molecular biophysics. My experience here at the University of Arizona has been very positive. Life here is quite fun, but extremely busy. In the United States, college is seen as a quantum leap from high school, and during my time here, I have found that to be exceptionally true. College life here is filled with homework, studying for tests, reading, working, and just trying to make time for yourself. Time management is a very important tool to have at any university, no matter where you are. It just seems like there is never a dull moment and there is always something to do. Living in the dorms here at the University of Arizona has been an interesting experience. I share a room with another student, Josh. The room is somewhat small, but very manageable to live in. Josh and I have efficiently managed to get along with each other and share. That is not to say that we have never had disagreements or arguments because we have had several dozen. Josh and I are very different people and have different tastes in music, television, reading preferences, political views, and religious beliefs. For me, the most daunting part of dorm living is the lack of privacy. Everyone on my wing shares the same bathroom, which often times becomes very dirty easily. The food here is also not the healthiest. It is difficult to maintain a balanced diet here because of the large majority of high calorie fast food restraunts present at the university.

Weekends At the University of Arizona Can Be Fun As Well As Terrifying

My name is Roby Owsley, and i am a freshman at the University of Arizona. My first few weekends down here have been some of the best times of my life, as well as the most frightening. A few weeks ago, I had one of the scariest moments of my life. In this story I will tell you about one of my weekends at the University. As the last class on my precious Friday winds down, I can't seem to stop thinking about the night ahead of me. What are my friends and I going to do? Are there any parties to go to? And of the most important question, what am I going to wear to impress the ladies? I finally get out of my last class of the day, it was my History class, and I basically speed walk my way back to my dorm to hear the good news of the night to come. I finally arrive at my dorm, which is named Kaibab, and it is around twelve in the afternoon. I sprint up to my room 320, which is on the third floor. I bust open the door and I see my roommate on the computer looking for things to do on his Facebook. A Facebook is an internet site that almost all the kids at school have, and is used to message friends and to communicate about what is going on every weekend. My roommates name is Jordan, and he has been my best friend since kindergarden. But anyways, back to the story. I throw my backpack off, grab a cookie and a drink, and I ask for Jordan to tell me the good news. He tells me of a party that will be happening later tonight that we were invited to. I am so excited, I slam my drink down and smash my cookie into my mouth. I then lay in my soft bed to take a nap to ready myself for the night ahead. I wake up suddenly about two hours later, prepared and refreshed for the night. I quickly jump in the shower, and clean my self up. Our showers are in a community bathroom, which is a big bathroom that everyone in our hall shared. I dry off, throw on some fresh clothes, and put on some colone to make sure I smell extra delicious. For the ladies of coarse. I am finally ready for the night. I call all of my friends and ask if they want to role to the party with us. We all meet at my friend's car, and we're on our way. We finally get there, and the party is just getting started. We meet some new people, talk with some girls, and are having a great time. This party we are at goes for about three hours, and we decide to leave at around one in the morning, which is considered an early night for us. But while we are driving home, one of my buddies says he's hungry, and that we should stop by this burrito shack he knew about. We pull up and everyone orders their food. I order a steak and egg burrito, and go to sit down with my friends that already ordered. And just as my last friend is ordering his food, another kid that was already in there decides he is going to say something stupid to one of my friends. My friend comes to the table all of us are hanging out at and tells us what happened. Suddenly, a couple of my buddies jump up and walk over to the other kids table. They ask the kid why he had to talk bad about our friend, and the kid continues to talk trash to us. (talking trash means to say stupid stuff to someone trying to get them upset). Suddenly a huge fight breaks out. This goes on for only a couple minutes, and nothing serious happens. We all walk out of the place to go back to our dorm. We all get into the car and a huge white truck pulls up behind us. A big older guy gets out and walks up to one of the rolled down windows and asks my friend for some gas money. We all try and tell him we have no money and that we're leaving, but he isn't looking for any else but trouble. He reaches in and slaps one of my friends in the face screaming and yelling, and he pulls a gun out on all of us. My friend hits the gas, and we ramp over some parking blocks to get away. The guy gets in his truck and begins to chase us. He is on our tail, about a foot behind us with his brights on. Me and all of my friends are laying as low as we could get, heads down, fearing about getting shot. We hit a bunch of tricky manuvers, and we end up losing them. We finally make it back to the dorm room, and everyone is scared to death. Even though no one was hurt, it ended up being one of my most frightening nights ever. However the best part of this night was we were able to eat our burritos in the safety of our room. I have had some great nights here at the U of A, but this was by far the worst night i've had so far. So to conclude my story, weekends here at the University are amazing, and are always a good time, but this night, it seemed like someone was definately watching over all of us. This is one of my many stories from my time at the University of Arizona.

My College Life

Hi, my name is Thomas Daya. I am a freshman at the University of Arizona. I was born in raised in New Jersey so I am very far away from home. At home I have a great family, great friends, and the most amazing girlfriend (whom I’m going to marry). Its tough for me being all the way out here away from the people I love and things I love to do. I live in a dorm with a roommate that I met when I first came down here. My roommate and I get along, I guess, but there are a lot of things that bother me. Its tough living with someone you don’t know. I am actually having a tough time of adjusting here. A large part of college is partying and I’m not into that. That’s not who I am any more and I don’t like that. So I mostly workout, do my schoolwork, and play hockey. School to me comes fairly easy and everyday I am done with classes no later that 3am and start the earliest at 9am. Some days I start later and end later. Generally I have 2 to 4 classes a day. I am taking 17 credits. I have 5 different classes. Here in Arizona I am proud member of the Arizona Icecats, which is a club Division 1 team that plays in the ACHA (a league). The hockey I play is very competitive and the team is selected rather than anyone just making the team. I am currently the youngest member on the hockey team and am actually playing. Most kids on the team are between 20 and 24. Hockey is my life and takes up most of my time here in Arizona. If I didn’t have hockey I wouldn’t still be at this school, I would have went home. I am quite homesick and haven’t been home since August 14th and I won’t be going home till November 20th. Usually I’ll have practice almost everyday and from 4:45pm to 7:30pm. It takes up a large part of my day. I do my homework before and after hockey. Also, everyday I go to the gym to work out. On the weekends I have hockey games. So far we have traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, Rochester, New York, and Lubbock, Texas. To Arizona and Texas we traveled on a bus. For every game we must get dressed up in suits or dress pants, jacket, and tie. Its pretty cool traveling with the team because people often think that we are professional hockey players! It was a two-hour bus ride to Phoenix, Arizona and a long 12-hour drive to Texas. It was brutal. For the bus rides we take coach buses. However, going to New York we flew. It was awesome. I really enjoy the road trips because it is cool traveling with your teammates. I really enjoyed going to New York because my family, friends and girlfriend drove up to see me. I was so happy. This upcoming weekend is our first home games. I am so excited; the stadium we play in holds around 6,000 people. I hear a lot of people attend our games. Being a part of the team I got some free equipment and apparel, and everything with the team is paid for. As of right now our record is 5 wins, 1 loss, and 1 tie. We play about 30 to 35 games per season and hopefully this year we’ll got to nationals and possible win. I cant wait to go home to New Jersey I really miss my life there (my girlfriend, my friends, my family, my car, doing all the things I use to do).

Dorm Life at The University of Arizona

Hi, my name is Rachel John and I am currently a freshman at the University of Arizona. I am living on campus in a dorm with two other girls. I didn’t know either of them when I first came to Tucson in August. Living in the dorms was a major adjustment for me. Back at home, in Danville, California, I had my own room, which is about the same size as my dorm now and my own bathroom. The bathrooms in my dorm are community bathrooms, which means that our bathrooms are at the end of our hallway, and approximately 40 girls share them. This is sometimes a major inconvenience. If you ever want to wash your hands, brush your teeth or even take a shower you end up having to go down the hall in order to use the bathroom. Taking a shower in a community bathroom takes a lot of getting used to. We use shower caddies in order to carry all of our bathroom necessities such as shampoo and conditioner to the bathroom every time we want to take a shower. We also wear shower shoes most of the time because showering in a public shower can sometimes be disgusting.
My dorm room is basically a box. There are three twin-sized beds in my room along with 3 desks. There are also three closets, which have a decent amount of space, which is nice. Our beds are raised very high off the ground in order to give us more space to store things. We each have a dresser, which is also under our beds. We have a refrigerator and microwave in our room, which definitely comes in handy. Most of the time we only keep only snacks in our room, because there are many restaurants on campus where we can eat meals. The restaurants on campus are pretty good, but we get tired of them very quickly. Most of the time we either eat sandwiches, pasta, or salads. My dorm is also located very close to University Street, which has many restaurants and shops. Typically we eat on University about 2 times a week when we don’t feel like walking to get food on campus.
Most of the time I do my homework sitting on my bed or at my desk. I have a laptop computer, which is a major life savor. Without my own laptop I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I do majority of my homework on my laptop such as writing essays or typing up assignments. A lot of my homework is actually turned in online, so I end up not having to use my printer as much. I am currently taking an online class, where I do all of my assignments and quizzes online. It is a fun class because I can do my work whenever it is convenient as long as I turn it in by the assigned due date.
My classes at the University of Arizona are not as difficult as I was expecting. I have a very good schedule. My earliest class is at 10 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and 9:30 on Tuesday and Thursday. I have math four days a week from 1- 1:50. I also have a general education class from 12- 12:50 on Monday and Wednesday and 11- 11:50 on Fridays. My day ends by 2 on most days of the week, which allows me to have plenty of time to do homework.
I hope this helps you to better understand what college life is like in America. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Hope to hear from you soon!