Reflecting on Experience

Looking into town from Lancaster Castle

Now that I've settled in to my new school, and have had two months to get the hang of things, I can look back and think about what it means to be an American student studying away, be American in another country, and what privileges come along with this.

Where do I stand in terms of privilege?

In terms of privilege, I come from the more privileged side. I am a white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, native English speaking, Christian, standard accented, intelligent/educated, employed, first-world, adult without a speech impediment or criminal record. So a 15 out of 25 on the Check your privilege bingo. But here at Lancaster, things get complicated.

In her article "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack", Peggy McIntosh explains her realization that "In proportion as my [her] racial group was being confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated." Once I got to Lancaster, I got a feel for what it means to be on the other side of privilege.

Though I am studying in a predominately English speaking country and I am from a predominately English speaking country, here in Lancaster I am grouped under the category of international study abroad student with everyone studying abroad from any country outside the UK. We are separated from the other Lancaster students mainly by access to classes. When registering, we were only allowed to choose from a predetermined list of classes. We registered three days after we got to Lancaster (in January), where the full Lancaster students registered some time in November. I understand why this was done. We are only here for a short amount of time and full access was given to the full Lancaster students. But it separates us from our Lancastrian peers. We Allegheny students found out we were accepted to Lancaster about the same time the students registered. From talking to other study abroad students, I understand that they were accepted around the same time.

I felt alienated before I even got to Lancaster because I was not going to start off on the same foot as the other Lancaster students. I was also at a disadvantage as I did not have the time the Lancaster students had to do the readings for the first class as I found out two days before classes began.

What made matters worse was the expectation some professors had that I had taken the previous course. I am in a class entitled "American Literature from 1900" and the professor expected me to have taken his class the previous term called "American Literature to 1900". Our first day of lecture was about something we were to have read before break, something that I did not have access to.
We were also expected to know how to access the syllabus online through the Sakai-like site Lancaster uses.

Looking back on it, everything reminds me of the start to the board game "Life". You know how you have the option of either starting your career or going to college? I felt like "start your career" was chosen for me, without my consent. I was thrown into this other world without the background information my peers had and expected to hit the ground running. This is not nearly as bad as what other groups face. I know I can no longer take things for granted now that my eyes have been opened to the other side of privilege.