3 ms·
I grew up in a college town, and it's a weird experience in some ways. The college provides so much, jobs obviously but also opportunities for classes, concerts
by neaden 4y ago
I grew up in a college town, and it's a weird experience in some ways. The college provides so much, jobs obviously but also opportunities for classes, concerts, and other things that wouldn't normally be in a city that size. But at the same time there are always troubles with a minority of the students, exacerbated by the fact that you are continually getting new people who don't know the history of things, or the reason they are a certain way. Oberlin, both city and college, seem like an even more exaggerated version of what I grew up with and it's a shame to see how a 100+ year positive relationship can turn sour so quickly.
- gotoeleven 4y agoYes relationships quickly turn sour if you accuse people of racism for trying not to have their business robbed.
- _jal 4y agoI went to an expensive school with sometimes-tense "townie" relations. I tended to empathize more with the town folks, honestly, which was probably a class thing - I was on a "full-ride" scholarship, from a poor family, and working in the cafeteria with a lot of non-students. There are a lot of reasons for tension, but I think the hardest one is that most of the students are explicitly in an experimental mode, trying out new ways of thinking and relating, while folks in the surrounding town... are not, and have no incentive to indulge the rich kids from out of town.