{"id":37,"date":"2024-01-02T17:50:11","date_gmt":"2024-01-02T17:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karenphan.me.holycross.edu\/?p=37"},"modified":"2025-03-06T17:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T17:27:09","slug":"culture-friends-and-academic-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/2024\/01\/02\/culture-friends-and-academic-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Friendship and Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this post, I\u2019ll be writing about my experience with the social culture in Scotland, while telling you about my favorite experiences forming friendships and getting adopted into an academic family.<\/p>\n<p>Fresher\u2019s week helped a lot with making friendships but most importantly were the spontaneous interactions I had on bus rides, study abroad advising, and in my dorm hallways. For me, the hardest social aspect has been maintaining friendships. On the hill, you\u2019re running with your friend group because the campus is essentially a circle. In contrast, St As is majorly an international institution so they attract students from all over the globe. While living in the town and on the outskirts. There are not many dormitories that are as tightknit in comparison to Easy Street or off campus housing.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, you\u2019re integrated with not just undergrads, but master students and PhD candidates as well. I\u2019ve made memorable memories and friendships through grabbing coffee and scones, golfing, and even in class. Some of which are my mentors and aspirations to be. They have helped me stay grounded when I felt overwhelmed and lost in my own path of what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n<p>Some major highlights have been attending <a href=\"https:\/\/wellyball.com\/home\">Welly Ball<\/a> and having an academic family. Throughout the year there will be balls hosted by charity committees that helps with building a network of friends. Welly is known for its black-tie attire paired with rainboots. It was an experience, and I would recommend trying at least one of these socials once.<\/p>\n<p>During the first week of being on campus, I was with the Holy Cross girls on East Sands when a stranger sprinted towards us asking if we were seeking fathers. Don\u2019t fret, this is very common because of a long running tradition at St As. Each year first years and any newcomers are adopted and guided by upper classmen to be a part of a family. You typically participate in Raisin week and May Dip that take part during the school breaks. Read more about traditions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.st-andrews.ac.uk\/study\/why\/life\/traditions\/\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">Happy New Years!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">Karen<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_54\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-54\" style=\"width: 377px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-54 \" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2029.jpeg\" alt=\"Empire Shawarma\" width=\"377\" height=\"283\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2029.jpeg 2304w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2029-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2029-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2029-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2029-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2029-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 377px) 100vw, 377px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-54\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">I lost my digital camera, but I would recommend investing in one to take with you one nights where you want to save some memories. My favorite are ones from Empire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_53\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53\" style=\"width: 369px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-53 \" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2131.jpeg\" alt=\"Halloween!!\" width=\"369\" height=\"277\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2131.jpeg 2304w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2131-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2131-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2131-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2131-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2024\/01\/IMG_2131-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 369px) 100vw, 369px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-53\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yes, they do celebrate Halloween at St As!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this post, I\u2019ll be writing about my experience with the social culture in Scotland, while telling you about my favorite experiences forming friendships and getting adopted into an academic family. Fresher\u2019s week helped a lot with making friendships but most importantly were the spontaneous interactions I had on bus rides, study abroad advising, and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/2024\/01\/02\/culture-friends-and-academic-families\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Friendship and Culture&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":15,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/karenphan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}