Student's Different Experience in Texas
By Michael Liang
This fall, a lot
changed for Manal Ahmed. The sophomore from a small town in Louisiana started
her college career out in New Orleans as a student at Tulane University but
quickly transferred to The University of Texas at Austin this year.
Ahmed, without
hesitation, was drawn dramatically to her new home in Austin. Coming from
Prarieville, LA, the neurobiology major had to swiftly adjust to the new big
city life. Her hometown in Ascension Parish is a quaint bedroom suburb for
Baton Rouge with a population of about 30,000. Known for its farms and rural
communities there isn't much to do there for people around her age.
Ahmed, while she
loves her home, has loved the change even more. She feels that coming to Austin
has opened her up to many things she would have never seen or discovered
before. Ahmed loves the fact that there are so many different organizations at
UT that are so diverse. This gave her a much larger sense of diversity than she
has seen before and she loved every ounce of it.
Along with this,
Ahmed believes that Austin gave her a much larger sense of culture. Austin,
being the Live Music Capital of the World, has an enormous history of music and
the arts. With several festivals each year, such as Austin City Limits and
South by Southwest, Ahmed has been shown many different cultural aspects that
just aren't possible in Prarieville.
