A post from Shabab at OWU

This is mail from Shabab who is just going through the first weeks of work-study in a US college. Please read through to find the amount of work he predicts for himself. Note a tone of perfect journalese.

31 August, 2013

Sir, Shabab here.

OWU [Ohio Wesleyan University] quite good, the classes are demanding and already putting pressure on me. I have already started working at them hard. In English 105 (a seminarish class that gets freshmen used to how college papers and stuff work, I was told that I did a good job in writing an essay they had as an assignment. People here are very friendly and it already feels like home. Students require 34 credits over four years to graduate and each full-fledged course has about 1 credit to it's name. At the moment I have Intro to Psych, English 105, Intro to Political Science and Appreciation of Music literature. I am on the wait-list for Sociology and Economics introduction courses; if I get a spot in either of them by September the 2nd, I might drop political science to get either of them. The Psych and Economics department are especially strong here. I have also met a few musicians and already started jamming in the chapel. Overall it feels quite great. Professors actually care to get to know students personally, discuss their performance and ask them what went wrong when they do not show up. Besides that there are academic advisors and counselors for further assistance in case anything goes wrong.

I have Psychology, Political Science and Music class on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays while I only have English at 1 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you can see I get a good amount of breathing space here and there. The Library staying open until 2 am is also quite great in case I need to look things up. My roommate and other people I meet around the inter-dorm open areas on walks are almost always ready to jump into discussions about the world, socio-political and economic matters. My academic advisor is the lead music theory and piano professor around here, by the way. There are about 2 other Bangladeshi students in this freshmen batch or so. There are quite a few clubs for different kinds of activities and so on. I am thinking of joining a SLU (Small Living Unit) called House of Thought next semester. A SLU is a type of house that isn't like a frat or sorority, has about 10-15 people united by a common concept or cause (others are things like Modern Foreign Language, Feminism, Peace and Justice and so on). OWU is pretty much known as one of the 'Ohio Five' as the higher liberal arts colleges in Ohio. The Town surrounding the place is pretty small - mostly food-places-and-stuff here and there; the international orientation leaders took us on trips to Wal-Mart or so on. The Social Sciences in general are pretty big here. The only negative thing about studies I have heard here is about one Bangladeshi economics professor who has some negative bias against males from our subcontinent - apparently he never gives an A to males of our race for some reason, no matter how hard they work. Besides that it feels quite good to be here. I am already on getting an on-campus job here and seeking to keep my GPA up to go for scholarships next year or so.

Regards, 

Shabab.