And somehow, miraculously \u2014 after almost two years \u2014 not a drop of blood has been spilled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least, unless you count a minor incident on Pancake Day 2018, when the three representatives of our respective nations stepped up to the pan in a deadly culinary battle; a valiant attempt to prove that theirs alone was the true <\/em>pancake, not a soggy-bottomed scone or a glorified crepe as the various opponent forces would have you believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s just say we\u2019ll be sticking to the Waffle Co for our batter-based consumables this time around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But, minor skirmishes aside, the living arrangement works. We have the advantage, perhaps, of a common language, a similar level of education, and no irreconcilable differences in terms of political views, religious beliefs, or a lack thereof. Against this backdrop, our difference in nationality seems trivial, if not entirely immaterial. Certainly, it has have proven no barrier to either our cohabitation or our friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As fellow members of the University, I am sure these experiences will seem very familiar. And I am sure you will agree when I suggest that the St Andrews network is a phenomenon which deserves attention all on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A web of students, staff, and academics from across the globe coalesce here in a tiny bubble: our own small hive of international, interdisciplinary, and interpersonal connections, and surely as good an example for transnational activities as any. Add the seasonal influx of tourists, golfers, and holidaymakers into the mix, and a whole new dimension begins to emerge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And it can, of course, prove deeply controversial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, amongst\nmy housemates, who I have listed as two Americans, two Scots, and myself (English,\nthough I will somewhat vainly default to British in my paperwork in recognition\nof the peculiar transnationalism of my own family), it has become something of a\ngrim running joke to refer to our small North Sea town as if it were a modern Anglo-American\ncolony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And for all of us, the intense transnationalism of our university is a self-conscious experience. The fact that neither of our Scots speak with quite the same accents as their grandparents, parents, or peers back home is itself enough to generate some small feeling of disconnect from their sense of locality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now in the presence of others, they are instead galvanised to find further common ground in nation<\/em>ality \u2014 often, shared dialect words or pronunciations, shared experiences in education, or even familiar food and drink. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Think less haggis, neeps, and tatties, and more Barr\u2019s bubblegum \u2018fizzy juice\u2019 drink (\u201cYou can\u2019t call it pop, nobody says pop!\u201d<\/em>), steak pie with a pastry top (\u201cWhat do you mean it’s supposed to come with a pastry case? That\u2019s not the point of a steak pie!\u201d<\/em>) or cauliflower pakora from your local Glaswegian Indian takeaway, which my housemate swears is like no other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because\nwhile, on a larger scale, certain markers of identity become more difficult to\ndistinguish \u2013 the little details lost on a larger-scaled map, the tiny\norganelles of a cell that blur together under lower magnification \u2013 so too do new\nshapes and contours come into focus, even if they were previously unseen,\nunknown, or simply irrelevant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the interesting things about St Andrews, however, is that what comes into view very clearly as an English or an American student is how surprisingly easy it is to fit in here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before coming to St Andrews, I attended a series of statistically average comprehensive schools which, though I loved, were not the ones expected to produce the best university applicants in my area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nonetheless, my academic profile was promising, and though, ironically, I was afraid that my history grade or my upcoming exam retakes might hinder my chances at entry, my careers advisers, as well as representatives of the university that I spoke with at UCAS fayres were always open-minded to my potential as an applicant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, though you might put it down to cultural differences, the overwhelming message received by both of my American housemates was simply to go for it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Often, for\nthe Scottish students I have known, quite the reverse has been true. From their\nown schools to the level of university representatives, the number of\nprospective students told plainly that they won\u2019t get in\u2014 or told by friends\nand family that they certainly won\u2019t fit<\/em>\nin \u2013is quite alarming. Even more so when you usually hear these stories\ndirectly from students who did<\/em> get\nin, and who have proven themselves more than worthy to be a student here, in\ntheir classes and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We could\neasily argue about the other factors which might generate this pattern of\nstories: assumptions about education and attainment, about socioeconomic\nbackground, even\u2014 or more conspiratorially, as many certainly do \u2014the controversial\ncalculus of funding, quotas, and tuition fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet I cannot help but perceive a stubborn national element here, and I do wonder what it says about us and about our institution that this imbalance exists. That it is frequently the Scottish students who feel the outsider here\u2014 and, indeed, who often feel an outsider on their return home \u2014while most English and American students are absorbed quite easily into the mix. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We might boast of a highly international intake, but how diverse is it, really? Do we really experience a strong current of internationalism at St Andrews? Do we hear four different languages waiting in the library lobby, as you might at Aberdeen? Do we hear the voices of people of colour in every hall of residence and every class cohort, as you would in London or Leeds? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Are we, I ask my fellow English or American students, routinely challenged in our assumptions by people of other nationalities, cultures, or backgrounds?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or, by and large, is our esteemed St Andrews network dominated by a transplanted Anglo-American culture, flavoured with a dash of orientalist Scottish whimsy worthy of Sir Walter Scott\u2019s pageant for Queen Victoria in 1842? <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wonder. I wonder. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And somehow, miraculously \u2014 after almost two years \u2014 not a drop of blood has been spilled. At least, unless you count a minor incident on Pancake Day 2018, when the three representatives of our respective nations stepped up to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-jB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}