Survey Results #21: International Wanderers

A couple weeks ago, in a blog titled ‘National Wanderers’, we talked about the geographic diversity of Lawrence University’s student population. That theme continues, with some more information about our international diversity.

When you arrive at Lawrence, you’ll be at one of the most internationally diverse campuses in the country. About 13% of our students are international students, coming from all over the world. In fact, you might even find yourself hanging out at the International House.

In addition, the Diversity Center will always be working on campus to present educational programming designed to help us better understand diversity in a rapidly changing world.

Recognizing that so many of our students are international, we asked you to tell us what country you were most excited to meet someone from. A good number of you let us know that you were excited to meet someone from any country, which, of course, is a good thing. Some of you were more general, citing regions or continents (such as Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and South America…in that order.) But for those of you who listed a specific country, you came up with a list of 48 different countries.

Here are the top five:

1 – France

2 – Australia

3 – Italy and Japan (tied)

4 – Germany

5 – China

Some of the other countries that garnered a lot of interest were: South Africa, Russia, Poland, England, Greece, Brazil, Ghana, India, Korea and Ireland.

A few weeks ago, we suggested you stop by to check out the map of the United States, with a pin indicating the hometown of each student. Today, we’d encourage you to do the same thing, but instead to look on a different wall in Wilson House. There, you’ll find a map of the entire world, with a pin representing each international student, as well as each study abroad program.

By the end of your time at Lawrence, you’ll have had the opportunity to interact, live and work with students from all over the country…and all over the world.

Alphabet Soup: Survey Results # 20

When we asked what your favorite letter was I’m not sure we knew quite what we were thinking (or if the song from the alphabet soup commercial somehow got stuck in our heads around that time) but it was fantastic learning what you thought!

Your collective favorite letter is?

S!

With A a close second.

Just for grins we thought we’d determine what your least favorite letter was.

Survey says…

P!

With no other letter near by.

Survey Results # 19: “Oh you are special, special, everyone is special…” (Part one)

The title is a quote from one of Barney’s smash hits, (Yes, Barney the friendly purple dinosaur), and it accurately portrays how we feel about each member of our incoming class. In a recent survey, we asked the class of 2013 “What is the most unique thing about you”, and the responses were, well, unique!

Here are some responses:

-“My Bald Head”

-“I throat sing”

-“I own a pink hairless dog that has brown spots. No, this is not a lie”

– “I have a donkey that is buried in our yard (it is dead)”

-“My majestic nose”

-“I have a birthmark located on the underbelly of my chin”

-“I have a drag queen alter-ego named Siouxsie Queball” (Fierce!)

-“I can put a string into one of my nostrils and pull it out of the other” (a little gross, but ok)

-“I’m a closet birdwatcher”

-“Our family owns a Christmas tree farm”

-“Siamese cat named Yo-yo Ma, and my standard poodle named Hadji”

-“Cogito Ergo Nom” (I think therefore I am)

-“Some people call me a ping pong master”

-“I can sing the Element song by Tom Lehrer” (a pretty impressive feat)

More uniqueness to come. Stay tuned…

Survey Results #18: Is this part of the freshman studies program?

We asked you, “if you could only do one thing for fifty hours, what would it be?”

The most popular answer was sleep…although one person added that it was only so that she could do many things in the next fifty hours. A good number of you responded with musical or athletic activities. Many of you expressed your interest to read several books, watch a marathon of movies, or even, according to one person, “watch one episode of America’s Next Top Model.” (One episode?! For 50 hours?)

One person wanted to jump on a trampoline. Another wanted to count dollar bills, with the ability to keep all the money he had counted after fifty hours. Yet another said, “over fifty hours? Get tired of whatever it is!” Someone, who is apparently very suspicious, said, “This question makes me nervous. Is this part of the freshman studies program?”

No – although you can get more information about freshman studies here.

Finally – one person seemed to catch on to what we were asking about, by responding “play a Midwest trivia contest.”

Trivia, as you will come to call it this January, is a non-stop 50-hour marathon of meaningless, useless trivia that will have you Googling the oddest phrases imaginable, calling people throughout the country, and running to the internet radio station to win points in the strangest “action question” you could imagine.

Once, teams were asked to produce a pound of human hair…and they did. (The winning team went to the dumpster of a hair salon.)

You can check out the student-maintained trivia site.

Or, read the “official” Lawrence University perspective of this tradition.

Despite what you may think now…there’s a strong chance you’ll find yourself drinking an energy drink at 4:00 am Saturday morning trying to figure out what Frank Zappa’s Fire Prevention Week poster said when he was in ninth grade.

Survey Results # 17 Who are you anyway?

When we meet with prospective students and families, we often get into discussions about what students are like today. So we thought we’d ask you. Who are you? And how would you describe yourself?

When we asked you to use one word to describe your generation here is what some of you said.

Wild

Very cultured (no fair: that’s two words!)

Ascendant

Visionary

Facebook

Connected

Lackadaisical

Brave

Unpredictable

Caffeine

Unrestrained

Creative

Apathy

Dreamers

Divided

Technological

Awesomesauce (available in Lawrence’s new campus store)

Multi-interested (thanks for reading our stuff!)