Have you ever studied with non Jewish people?

amother

Wed, May 12 2021, 8:40 pm

What is/was it like for you to study in a non Jewish environment?

What are/were the biggest challenges you came across.
How did you relate to the other students?

Was it hard to be the only Jewish person?

amother

Gold

Wed, May 12 2021, 8:51 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

It was great. Biggest challenge is making up classwork because of y"t. It was not hard, but was nervous not knowing anyone going into it.

The other students were very smart, very nice and very mentchlich.

amother

Slategray

Wed, May 12 2021, 9:02 pm

amother [ Green ] wrote:

I went to Columbia for graduate school and now work in a secular environment, so yes

I went to Columbia for undergrad. I tried to make friends with a couple of girls in each of my classes so I could get notes if I missed any classes for yomim tovim. Most of the time we were just friendly acquaintances, but there were a couple of girls I became better friends with. I even invited one to my wedding! My good friends in college though were other frum girls.

In terms of studying together, I tended to prefer to do so on my own. However if I needed to do group work or join a study group I tried very hard to make it in a public location rather than a dorm room.

amother

Blonde

Wed, May 12 2021, 9:02 pm

I went to Brooklyn College and Fordham University. At Brooklyn, I was one of a handful of frum people in my program, and I became friendly with the others. I think there was only one (maybe two) classes that I took alone, so there was always someone to sit next to and discuss how to manage missing class due to the yomim tovim. At Fordham, there was one other frum woman (out of a cohort of about 20), so it was a similar situation. Fordham is a religious school (Jesuit) and I found that my professors were more understanding of me missing class for YT than at Brooklyn, where my Jewish but not religious teacher gave me a hard time about missing two classes due to Sukkos.

amother

Pear

Wed, May 12 2021, 9:07 pm

I've found that with today's accommodating environment, all professors easily give me workarounds for tests on Shabbos/ yom tov. Other students have been less understanding (group project work...) and I learned that the onus is on me to be as accommodating as I can in those scenarios.

Good practice for the real work environment though.

Last edited by amother on Fri, Oct 28 2022, 1:02 pm; edited 2 times in total

amother

Goldenrod

Wed, May 12 2021, 9:07 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

It was a good experience for me.

I related to the other students as fellow human travelers, and we got along well.

It was not hard for me to be the only one, I was very aware of our shared humanity and I think that helped me.

scruffy

Wed, May 12 2021, 9:09 pm

amother [ Goldenrod ] wrote:

Love this

icedcoffee

Wed, May 12 2021, 9:16 pm

I was the only observant Jew in my grad cohort at Penn. I felt very self conscious taking off so many days between chagim and early shabbats, but no one gave me a hard time and everyone was understanding. I enjoyed sharing what I could, and people were curious. For example the first week we had to each teach a 15 minute lesson to the cohort and I taught how to make challah and all about it. I even made a very close non-Orthodox Jewish friend and we started baking challah together all the time. There were some challenges, like when our professor invited us all to dinner at her house and I felt weird not eating like the others, but overall it was a wonderful group of people. And obviously outside of my cohort, Penn has a large Orthodox community, so finding a community was easy (thank you to the Chabad there!).

amother

Dodgerblue

Wed, May 12 2021, 9:34 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Most of my education (everything after 6th grade through completion of college) was in a non-Jewish environment. No issues at all. Nor was I ever the only Jewish person.

NotLazySusan

Wed, May 12 2021, 10:15 pm

For most of my undergraduate and graduate classes I was the only visibly frum person. It was both uncomfortable and liberating. Uncomfortable because it was an unusual environment and liberating because I was free of the ever present societal pressures that I find in large in town frum communities.
I relished the opportunity to make a kiddush Hashem by being polite, helpful, respectful, and like someone else said, overly accommodating when working in groups due to Shabbos and Yom Tov restrictions.

amother

Wheat

Wed, May 12 2021, 10:48 pm

Tbh I wasn't comfortable. But it wasn't the end of the world. Through my work I did have to learn how to get along with people of different backgrounds and that took time.

amother

Brunette

Wed, May 12 2021, 10:54 pm

Has anyone graduated in the last 3 years? My friend was having a horrific time on campus right before corona the antisemitism from other students and professors was out of control.

Can everyone add what years they are referring to? I wonder if it's different now?

mommy3b2c

Wed, May 12 2021, 11:05 pm

I went to a jewish grad school but my classes were always full of non Jews. I made friends with some of them. Didn’t make a difference to me at all. I’m the kind of person who can be comfortable among any “type.” At this point in my life, due to my work, most of my friends are black and Hispanic makes. My best friend is a chassidish woman. I really don’t care about externals.

NotLazySusan

Wed, May 12 2021, 11:13 pm

amother [ Brunette ] wrote:

I graduated within the last 3 years. In my opinion, it’s our job as frum people to behave in an ethical and dignified manner at all times while not assuming that every difficulty is due to anti Semitism.

NotLazySusan

Wed, May 12 2021, 11:14 pm

mommy3b2c wrote:

Blacks and Hispanics - me too!!

amother

Gold

Thu, May 13 2021, 12:01 am

amother [ Brunette ] wrote:

Just finished before covid. Low income, high immigrant college. Majority poc, & "frum" muslims too. In a large metropolitan area. Did not get any anti semitism. Though sometimes they were clueless about middle east politics and never heard the un-evil version ever before. They thought it was bad, but were open to listening and hearing, very respectful.

shmoosh

Thu, May 13 2021, 12:01 am

I’m the only Jewish person in my class. I’m constantly surprised by some of the things I grew up with that are completely not on the radar of some of my classmates. One example that surprised me was a class discussion about how we identify ourselves as individuals. This is something that (I think) most BY schools spend a lot of time discussing and I was so surprised to see all my classmates identify themselves as what students of what were going for. I was the only person who had an answer that was different (a product of the choices and decisions I make every day) and even the professor didn’t get it. The rest of the discussion is how we identify ourselves in a group and as a part of society. This would include jewish, mom, __ student, etc.
my experience has been amazing though. I’m very friendly with all my classmates and my school treats me very well in terms of yomim tovim.

amother

Brunette

Thu, May 13 2021, 12:05 am

NotLazySusan wrote:

She goes out of her way to make a kiddush hashem all the time yet she was called dirty jew and told that jews didn't really suffer in the holocaust etc... I mean actual antisemitism