Decoding Your Campus

Here in the Crusade world, we have a phrase we like to call "decoding your campus".  Basically, that's an official sounding term that means figuring out what types of students are on the campus, where they hang out, what their needs are, and anything else that would be helpful in reaching the student body with the message of the gospel.  The University of Carabobo is a very interesting place, unlike any other university I've ever seen.  If you thought your campus was complex, take a look at this:

Within the large university, there are actually 3 different campuses or faculties.  These faculties consist of Medicine and Dental, Engineering, and Humanities, which includes everything from business, art, and education.

The police are not allowed on the college campuses because they are supposed to be places of free thinking, but the government also doesn't want student movements to be formed because they know that student movements are where groups will rise up to try and overthrow the government.  Therefore, all three faculties are completely spread out to the point that you have to take a bus to move between them.  This is to prevent students from getting to know students outside of their majors and form groups that would revolt.

Strikes among the professors are common here.  The universities are free here because of socialism, but that means that the teachers get paid next to nothing.  To try and combat this, the teachers often go on strike.  However, the way strikes work here is that the teachers will just decide to strike one day.  They strike for a day or two, and then go back to work.  Whereas in the US a teacher strike would mean the teachers strike until some sort of compromise is reached, professors here just strike whenever they feel like it.  As a result, nothing really changes, and many of the students are frustrated because they have to miss class.  Some students have gotten so far behind because of these strikes that their graduation date has been pushed back by a whole semester.

Usually this frustration doesn't go above complaining, but recently a group of students got together over a weekend and burned one of the offices of a department head.  Our first day on campus, we walked past the burned office and you could still smell the charred plastic.  It looked like it was out of a set from a movie!

And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to decoding this campus.  Each faculty has its own subculture, and a very, very different feel.  For example:

Medicina- as you can imagine, medical students everywhere spend the majority of their time studying.  Here you are more likely to have people tell you that they are too busy to talk.  Medical students have 3 exams a week, so their is certainly a lot of studying to be done.  In some ways, I felt most at home in the medical building- its brand new, and except for the tropical plants inside, it looks like it could easily fit into any college campus, not to mention that I am way more accustomed to people telling me they don't have time to talk than sitting down and having an hour conversation with me!

Ondontologia (Dental)- students here also spend a great deal of time studying, but seem to be a little more open to talking than students in the medical building.  With it's air conditioned classrooms and open air walk ways, it seems like a cross between something from this part of the world and the US.  Virtually all of the students where light green scrubs here, as a large part of their schooling is working in the on site dental clinics.  People of all ages line the "hallways" as they wait to be treated.  Because it is a training clinic, the dental services are totally free to the public, and many people utilize them.

Ingeneria (Engineering)- Home to civil, mechanical, and industrial engineering students, what surprised me the most here was the number of female students.  While there are probably still more male students than females, the ratios in the US are crazy high on the guys' side of things.  Students spend a fair amount of time studying, but can also be found playing cards and hanging out in groups in between campus.  The other day there was even some live music in the center of campus that drew quite an energetic crowd.

Face Faces (Humanities)- When you step onto this campus, you feel like you're walking into a whole new world compared to the other campuses.  Life is always a party here and you'll find cars blasting music, and a huge array of vendors selling everything from food, drinks, accessories, and clothes.  Even the lagoon boasts interesting wildlife-snapping turtles and alligators! Sometimes I'm convinced that the primary purpose of this campus is to give people a place to hang out, as no one ever seems to concerned about going to class or studying.  Come to think of it, I even rarely see textbooks making an entrance here.

So there you have it.  The University of Carabobo in a nutshell.  There is of course much more to it, but unlike college students in the States, students get up early here, which means it is well past my bedtime.

Buenas Noches,
Sarah