One group of people hail primarily from the Middle East, they commute to school in a dirty, dusty, smelly city of 20 million people and eat falafel and shawerma daily.
The other group of people come from all over America. They live on or right off campus, and their dietary patterns are dictated by Pita Pita and Domino's "5-5-5," deal.
At first glance, there is a distinct contrast between the former - the student body at The American University in Cairo (AUC), where I studied last spring - and the latter - the students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Among the most obvious of the differences is the religious factor. The vast majority of AUC students are Sunni Muslim, the predominant branch of Islam in Egypt.
Here, of course, there are a variety of religious sects practiced openly and promoted by various student organizations, such as Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism.
In addition, many females at AUC wear hijabs, the veil worn over the shoulder and hair, as a sign of modesty. While here clothes of both males and females are worn more liberally.
Most AUC students commute to school by either a family car or by a driver hired by their family to transport them (many of the cars these drivers operated were the Jaguars of the Middle East in comparison to the dilapidated taxis I rode in frequently).
At UMass, students are required to live on campus for their first two years, and then they can choose whether or not to live off campus.
AUC students were among the most privileged people in their age group in the Middle East. Many of their parents were diplomats or held high positions in lucrative Gulf oil companies, enabling students to travel around the world to places like the United States, Russia and Australia.
The sad reality was that many other Egyptians and Arabs did not have the same opportunities as these students because of the limited socioeconomic freedoms in the region.
In contrast, UMass students come from all different socioeconomic backgrounds, one of the truly great virtues of state institutions and an indication of America's healthy social mobility.
The fact that your parent is a diplomat or truck driver does not hinder your ability to do well in grade school, be accepted to this University and flourish academically.
The fact that your parent does not have connections with the federal government does not mean that you won't have educational opportunities at UMass, or at any other American university for that matter.
Yet by no means do these differences cloud the similarities both student bodies hold. Even though they do not do it as often as students at UMass or other American universities - AUC students do drink and party.
I remember one anecdote from a friend who explained how she and some of her friends had drank, toilet-papered a house and to her dismay, had been caught by her parents.
If there ever were a universal principle applicable to the behavior of college students of all different ethnicities and religions, this is it: we are very smart, but sometimes we are also very dumb.
AUC students loved American pop music. In particular, they were fond of overly sentimental tunes, such as Celine Dion and the whole Titanic soundtrack (all male readers, join me as I shake my head in disgust). They also enjoyed hip-hop and R&B.
But the most important difference between the two student bodies is that AUC students did not study in an environment which fostered a free flow of information.
For example, at a school considered to be the most prestigious in the Middle East, and one which is funded by USAid, I rarely heard professors or students praise the American government or military, much less Israel. Both countries undoubtedly deserve to be criticized for some of their actions, but they also deserve to be commended for other actions.
Yet even though I heard criticism leveled at both countries daily, rarely did I see a professor or full-time AUC student challenge the common assumption held there that the American government is evil and its soldiers are terrorists.
This lack of debate reflected largely on professors' dictation of class discussion and selection of course readings skewed toward one political perspective. To be sure, UMass suffers from a politically-correct, intellectual environment also, but it is nothing in comparison to what I experienced overseas.
So to incoming freshmen and returning upperclassmen, cherish the opportunity to study at UMass. And of course, count your blessings that you can eat at Pita Pit. I got sick of shawermas after a while.
Greg Collins is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at gcollins@student.umass.edu.
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