I reign from Wisconsin, a land of predominately white people. This means that growing up, I didn’t get to experience a variety of cultures, which led me to look for a college that would cure my cultural homogeneity. Now, I find myself at Pace University, a liberal arts college just 40 minutes outside of New York City.

At Pace, I have been exposed to a variety of different cultures on campus. My school doesn’t attract just one race or religion; rather, it attracts a variety of them.

Three times a semester, my school offers a dance held in one of our gyms to bring our school together. Each dance is held regarding a cultural theme; for example, this past semester we had a dance for African Americans and Latinos. The best yet was a dance titled “Rep Your Flag,” in which students would receive a full size flag of the country they descend from and could wear it on the dance floor. This allowed our school to join together and recognize the different cultures and students we have at Pace University.

These dances were often put on by our cultural sororities and fraternities, which are a small, yet very impactful, part of our campus. Our school has the National Pan-Hellic Council and the National Association for Latino Fraternal Organizations. These councils oversee a variety of Greek organizations that relate more to culture than only social skills. While some of these sororities and fraternities focus on just one culture, there is a handful that accepts students of any culture, as long as they believe strongly in it.

In addition to the Greek organizations, we have a handful of student organizations on campus that relate to culture. One of our largest cultural organizations is the Organization of Latin American Students, or OLAS. This organization provides a lot of events for students on our campus, even those who don’t culturally connect to the Latino society. Personally, I’ve attended many OLAS events and have had a blast. Other organizations that Pace University offers are the Desi Heritage of Southeast Asia (DHOSA), Society of Caribbean Awareness (SOCA), Muslim Student Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Keep in mind that my campus has approximately 3,000 undergraduate students. We have all these cultures represented in different ways, despite an extremely small student body. This means that each day I see a variety of faces around campus, providing an even larger amount of stories to be heard about the variety of cultures that are represented at Pace University.

Alexis is currently a freshman at Pace University - Pleasantville, and majoring in Communications with a minor in Public Relations and Marketing. She has a multitude of different cultures in her: German, Belgian, French, Norwegian, Greek, and English, and she appreciates each and every part of it. Besides embracing her culture, Alexis enjoys being involved on her college campus in a variety of organizations. Her main passion lies in women empowerment and she hopes to leave a mark on the world one day.

Living at a Cultural College