UWC Scholars

Throughout the semester, I have had the chance to meet multiple UWC students through different things in which I’m involved. UWC stands for United World College, and these students in the UWC are students who went to an international school for two years to receive credit, and after that, they come to UWC-partnered schools, like the University of Oklahoma, for college in the United States.

On September 25th, the President’s Leadership Class of which I’m a part had one of our meetings with UWC scholars. At this meeting, we were split into small groups, and we were paired with UWC students. This is where I met Simon Lowry, who is from Swaziland, and Camilo Aponte Duque, who went to school in Colombia. At this meeting, we were playing a trivia game, with our groups as our teams. A lot of these questions were about places around the world, like which country has this flag or who a certain world leader is. As someone who does not know a lot about international events and topics, it was super interesting to learn from the UWC scholars. Both Camilo and Simon answered a lot more questions than I, and most people in my group, did, and it gave me perspective on how my education is vastly different from people from around the world.

After the meeting, I had the opportunity to talk with another international student from Uganda. We talked about everything from politics nationally and internationally as well as how Oklahoma is different from Uganda. One of the things that she said was the most surprising thing about Oklahoma was how casually everyone dressed on OU’s campus, and I thought that that was interesting. It’s cool to hear the perspective about the U.S. and Oklahoma from someone who is not from here, and I not only learned a lot from my conversation with her, but I also gained a friend.

A little bit over a month later, on November 4th, my sorority hosting a dinner with UWC scholars. This was where I met Noshir, who also went to school in Swaziland. Like with Simon and Camilo and Kirabo, it was interesting to hear about how home differs from Oklahoma. I loved hearing about everyone’s different experiences — experiences that I can only hope to gain from studying abroad in the future. I was so glad I had the opportunity to meet UWC scholars throughout the year, and I can’t wait to maintain friendships with these people.