Words from Naven

Hey Sir,

How are you doing? I hope your application season with the current students is going good. I just realized that it's been quite a long time since the last time I mailed you. 

I will admit a lot has changed in me and my surroundings since the first day I arrived here in Rochester. The people here, starting from the students to the faculty members and the staff. My ECO 108 professor, on the first day of class, started off by throwing away cents, quarters, and $1 and $10 bills just to show the principle of incentives. And it actually worked people barely moved when dropped a cent but they rushed off from their seats to get $10. Even I did. I was able to skip Calculus I to Calculus II, and I must say it is really a painstaking course. Surprisingly I like my writing course a lot. It is based on how comic books portrayed the American lifestyle during each era, and we have to write papers and stuff on those. I also took a course in Philosophy this semester. It's based on Moral Problems and I must say it is quite interesting. The course is actually allowing me see the world with a more open mind and at the same time complementing my Economics course and Debate. 

Yes! I did join the debate club and I even went to my first tournament to Bard college, the weekend before. I had an amazing experience. To be honest I feel extremely nervous about giving speeches but for some reason despite that I still find it amazing and keep on doing it. We also had a tournament at Yale this weekend but I couldn't make it due to my econ exam on Friday. Oh! and the best part is that the school finances the whole thing starting from travelling to hotel and even meal money! Other than that I did join some other clubs like Soccer, Archery, and Rowing, but I have been unable to be much involved recently though. 

My dorm is great, so are my hall mates. I did not expect my room to be this spacious though. Luckily, laundry has been made free from this session! I love the food here, with the wide range of variety, although it can get extremely bad at times. The classes are great and the campus is not so big and not so small also. I simply find it perfect to get around the place. Not to mention it's so damn beautiful. Although the real winter is coming and I cannot imagine how I will survive; it's so cold already.

Apart from everything amazing in the UofR I simply admire the freedom of students here. For instance, unlike other universities we are not required to take useless courses like American history, tonnes of Writing courses, we only have to take writing course once and that's all. I feel that it creates more time for us to pursue even more effective courses. People can do double or two or three minor quite easily. Even I was planning on majoring in Optics alongside Economics.

I simply can't finish off even here. All I can say for now that I believe, I am doing great and I hope to do even better(Meliora). I do miss home a lot at times, but the Bangledeshi  community here is great and so is the Muslim Community; we also had the first on campus Eid dinner in the second day of Eid. Lastly, I just want to thank you for all that you have done for me and all of us. I hope the application season goes great this time and most of all better than the last time. 

Thank you so much.

Yours Sincerely,

Naven