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An Englishman in College Station

Posted by Guest Columnist on May 11th, 2009 under Uncategorized

Frequent Carnival visitor EnglishAg mentioned to me that he was an English exchange student in College Station. This struck me as an interesting situation so I asked him to write it up (with no hope for any ball kicking). Here it is.

– S.R.

_______________________________________

Howdy!

I hope that is the correct version of hello in these parts… everything I know about tu was learnt in College Station and tested on Texags. You have to forgive me if my view is a little distorted.

In short, I was an English exchange student dropped into College Station for a year… fast forward a few years and Sailor has given me free reign to talk about my experiences in the hope that I give the ags a kick in the balls. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have it in me to do it. Not because I ‘bleed maroon’, but because I was dropped into Disney army-ranch and had a great time.

The backstory to all this is that my original choices UCLA and USC chose exchange students with good academic standing, leaving me with my third choice – admittedly, A&M didn’t really want me either, but in the brave world of international academia, they really had no choice.

Being the only student from the Lancaster University in College Station had its perks – no direct academic competition meant that, provided that I didn’t make a spectacular ass of myself in class, I was free to do whatever I pleased.

Consider that for a moment, you are 19 years of age, you have practically no responsibilities, a free pass to do whatever you want …and you are in College Station, the land where the cheerleaders are dressed in overalls, are male and encourage me to squeeze my balls whenever the football team are losing.

The real differences between university in England and America are obvious – American universities are so wealthy – Harvard has greater annual income that all English universities combined, so the facilities really are first rate and the campuses incredible. Admittedly, business school isn’t exactly expensive to run, but there is a whole world of difference between the Lowry Mays School of Business and LUMS. The biggest difference is in the education. An English education is all about the academia. Courses at Lancaster consisted of followed the path of:

1. reading list and essay title;
2. 1 week preparation time;
3. seminar with 5-10 other people discussing / grilling your work
4. repeat 10 times; and
5. final exam with 2 questions to answer in 4 hours.

In comparison, in College Station, a former Enron employee would read you excerpts of Ken Lay’s autobiography before asking you to complete a multiple choice test. One big production line.

Anyway, rant over. College isn’t about studying. It is about binge drinking and girls trying to find themselves. College Station was quite good for that – many will laugh at that statement, but all the girls want is a guy that doesn’t wear dickies. Many people have said that the best place to be a college athlete is Baylor – I agree with that – a never ending supply of baptist guilt ready to be exploited. Well change the words athlete and baptist guilt with exchange student and top heavy country girls in hotpants… you get the general idea.

If the pros of College Station are the girls and lax educational standards, the big con is the eternal hell of aggie athletics. Sailor may allow me to drop by again with my outsider’s views on sport, so I don’t want to give things away too much…suffice to say RC Slocum sent me to athletic hell – not by sucking so bad that I didn’t care, by being just a turnover here and a couple of bad decisions from being good. Imagine, I go back to England throw away my fake id, my girlfriend and everything else I held dear only to be left with an aggie athletics hangover – one that remains to this day.

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38 Responses

  1. SizzleChest said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    That wasn’t a cheerleader that encouraged you to squeeze your nuts. That was HenryJames.

  2. Tate Pittman said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    Hey, limey – would you help me with this?

  3. Spawn of Cthulhu said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    I salute you. I spent a year at Lancaster University as an exchange student in 1986-7.

    The work wasn’t grueling (I remember my Biochem final was 300 true/false questions), I learned to play rugby (started with Rugby League, since that was easier for an American to understand), and I enjoyed the fact that all the beer I could drink was imported at domestic prices. A great experience.

    On the other hand, I can’t imagine the culture shock you must have had by ending up at College Station. The area around Lancaster is fairly rural, but still the people seemed otherwise normal.

    The other interesting thing, I noticed, was that the rivalries in the UK were much older. Our rivalry with TAMU, OU, etc goes back maybe a century. The rivalry between Lancaster and York goes back 600 years or so and involved warfare and lots of killing and devestation. It felt good to beat them on the rugby pitch, though we weren’t allowed to execute them afterward.

  4. I got arrested for pissing on a statue at the University of East Anglia so at least we have something in common.

    The nut squeezing should be familiar for you EPL fans. I’m assuming it’s Man U given Lancaster’s proximity but it could just as well be Liverpool.

    I’m amazed at how relatively unscathed you emerged from the fightin farmer worm hole.

    Three snaps and a pint for you, EnglishAg.

  5. Facebook User said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    That was a prefect not a statue, you sodding tosser.

  6. If those cheeky bastards didn’t stand so damn still maybe my legless arse could tell the difference you yabbing yob.

  7. Black Scholes said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    I think the lesson here is when they ask you for a third choice – juuuust in case those first two in So Cal don’t work out – it’s not the time to throw some agricultural and mechanical school onto the queue just to be cheeky. Just a thought.

  8. Valhalla Rising said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 9:31 pm

    Pint ‘n pie anyone?

  9. Ben E. Hill said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 11:23 pm

    “top heavy country girls in hotpants…”

    The phrase “country girls” here (along with history and physics) suggests this disproportion isn’t long for the world.

  10. EnglishAg said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 12:48 am

    Spawn – good to hear from a fellow Lancastrian. I played rugby league too but cricket was the only sport I competed in at roses.

    I know what you mean about the 600 years of history – I grew up near Lancaster so it meant more to me than most (although certainly not life and death) – kind of like being a Texan at Texas playing against Oklahoma.

    I guess teaching styles are different between departments at lancaster. Just to be clear, at times tamu courses could be hard, but overall I found lancaster a constant level of pain rather than tamu’s boom / bust.

    On the top heavy country girl issue, there appears to be just such a thing in my gym this morning wearing a longhorn t-shirt – not bad considering I am 6000 miles from Austin.

  11. However good of a time you had in that wasteland, I can assure you it would have been 100 times better in Austin at t.. (ahem) at U.T.

  12. Ag_in_TX said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 5:22 am

    Doubtful – if you take off your orange-tinted glasses, you’ll realize College Station is a great place to raise hell, be 20 and drink way too much.

    English – interesting write-up – I am from Lancaster, TX, so we are practically twins.

    I will add that you must not have been an engineering major if you did not find the academics rigorous. I can assure you the Mechanical Engineering program is violently rigorous.

    And there are no female cheerleaders in the U.K. either, so you should have felt right at home.

  13. BatesHorn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 5:58 am

    Oddly enough, this experience mirrors my time at the University of Queensland, Brisbane in Australia. Since Brisbane is in the hinterland of OZ, the girls found Americans to be different in a good way. A really good way.

    Luckily for me, my college won the athletic cup, so unlike the Aggies, it was all good.

  14. intellectual type said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 5:58 am

    Nope, I am originally from the Austin area and a quarter of my class went to A&M and the other quarter to UT. EVERYONE, including the A&M graduates, agreed that Austin was much more fun than College Station.

  15. Delusion said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 6:04 am

    I agree with you 100% Ag_in_TX! How UT consistantly ranks in the Top 5 party schools in beyond me. It must be a Burnt Orange Media Conspiracy. 6th Street has nothing on the Dixie Chicken and cow tipping. And, why would an Englishman want tan hotties in sun dresses when you can mug down with a pasty co-ed after scoring a touchdown? Sure, if he was in Austin he’d score as much as the English dude from “Love Actually,” but he’d miss out on all the great traditions at A&M.

  16. Nordberg said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 6:16 am

    “Doubtful – if you take off your orange-tinted glasses, you’ll realize College Station is a great place to raise hell, be 20 and drink way too much.”

    I would say that literally any college town (besides Waco I guess) would qualify as a great place to be 20, drink, and raise hell, using your criteria.

  17. BatesHorn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 7:23 am

    I drank too much, was 20, and raised hell quite successfully in Lewiston, ME. (Google it, I’ll wait)

    That doesn’t qualify Bates as a good party school.

  18. Holy Cow said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 7:40 am

    Without looking it up BatesHorn, is that the nome of Bowdoin College?

  19. George W. Bush said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 8:11 am

    What? Be 20, drink too much, and raise hell?

    Where do I sign up?

  20. BatesHorn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 8:49 am

    Fuck, I wish. Bowdoin is in Brunswick, ME, a beautiful little Maine coastal town. Gorgeous campus, even if the girls are your typical Northeast liberal arts warpigs. Famous alumni: Joshua Lawerance Chamberlain, Franklin Pierce, Longfellow, Hawthorne.

    Bates College is in Lewiston, second largest population center in Maine and an old, run down mill town. Shithole. Famous ALumni: Bryant Gumbel.

  21. Nordberg said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 8:57 am

    BatesHorn, I went to high school in Austin with a guy that went to Bates. I don’t suppose you graduated in 1992.

  22. BatesHorn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 8:59 am

    Westlake, Class of 92. There was also a guy in my class at Bates from Austin High.

  23. Nordberg said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 9:10 am

    Holy shit.
    What’s your e-mail.

  24. Bates, remember that time I stepped on your nuts when we were playing football?

    I’m going to email Bevan right now. Haha. Small world.

  25. Ag_in_TX said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 9:59 am

    College Station – Party Capitol of Texas*

  26. BatesHorn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 10:00 am

    Jesus. Like I don’t have enough work today that you yahoos show up. Awesome.

    lonestar190@yahoo.com

  27. Spring Branch Horn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 10:17 am

    Did y’all receive you Masters at Bates?

  28. Spring Branch Horn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 10:17 am

    One more time

    Did y’all receive your Masters at Bates?

  29. BatesHorn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 10:56 am

    Clever. No. Really. Haven’t heard that one before. Also: No Vacancies.

  30. Bates – do you happen to know an alumnus of St. Mark’s/Hillcrest (Dallas)/St. Stephens from your time at Bates? Now living in LA?

  31. Parlin Hall said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 11:20 am

    Swift sets up the Master Bates joke like a pro in the first paragraph or so of Gulliver’s Travels.

    Which is why it’s a classic.

  32. BatesHorn said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 11:58 am

    I knew a few guys from Dallas while I was there. I fell out of contact with alot of people after I graduated.

    Bates had one of the worst football teams in Division III, and a overall sports program that bordered on intramural in quality (except Skiing) The few Texans who actually wanted to play sports after arriving usually quit after a few weeks because the whole affair was so pathetically amateur-eque.

  33. Morningstar Farms said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    Scipio- when you mention Texas country girls, I can’t help but think of an overly friendly Pam Anderson type-complete with hay hanging out of her mouth!You rarely get that in the city.

  34. Squeellyka hawg said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    Why do people always make fun of the overtly sexual and rural people? I thought you guys were all about “feedom”.Everyone evolves differently.College will teach you all that.

  35. scagnetti said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    FWIW…

    When I was 20, raisin hell and drinkin my way to oblivion, I WAS in Waco, and it was great.

    Bible-beatin’ Daddy’s girls are just plane naughty. Filthy wealth of riches in dear ol’ McClennan County. I did more deviously degenerate things in Waco, Texas, including the bouncy female enrolees.

  36. EnglishAg said:

    May 13th, 2009 at 1:46 am

    ag-in-tx – my roommate was a engineer – he seemed to work pretty hard – i stayed out of his way. he also spent a lot of time reading gun weekly (or similar) and playing dominoes in the northside dorms.

    i was lucky – the classes that i took gave me time to have a fun. maybe i would have had more fun or chased more ass at other schools – but the ‘traditions’ and overall experience will hang around longer than any STD’s i would have been at risk to at tech.

  37. intellectual type said:

    May 13th, 2009 at 5:36 am

    Haha, even the Englishman likes to poke fun at Tech and their filthy private parts. Well, not poke…but you get the point. Excellent.

  38. telekinetic fish/Rebel Rebel Republican said:

    May 13th, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    Dear ‘hog, not true. I’m enthraled by rural Amish ppl. & their language & culture. I am also a big fan of Mr.Ed (the handsome horse resembles Jamie Moyer of the Phillies). I also shop Big Box stores because of the excellent value they offer. I enjoy (humane) fast food.

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