Sophie Levy

Growing up in a place as diverse as Austin, Texas, coming to the University of Georgia was a sort of culture shock for me. I spent my entire childhood in Austin attending art schools of different kinds. My high school was a Fine Arts Academy and I was accustomed to a liberal, progressive community. I spent the summers in sunny San Diego, California, working at Surf Camp. Paskowitz Surf Camp was an even more relaxed atmosphere than Austin, and although far away from Texas, it was not hard for me to adjust to life there. I knew that attending school out of state was a huge, unpredictable risk, and my desire in this move was to experience something new. Although I did not see it at first, Athens is an extremely southern place and the cultural norms here are much different than in Austin. At first I felt very lonely in this new place where everybody seemed to know each other and had their own traditions, but I learned to adapt to my surroundings and embrace unique the aspects of myself. A year and a half later, I can say that I have loved getting to know this new place and I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to come here. Meeting people native to Georgia was very valuable as I got to go home with them and experience things I had never heard of (SO glad I discovered boiled peanuts) and bring those experiences back to Texas. I am still in shock that people actually own functioning farms, but then again, they did not believe me when I said I owned a ranch!