867: College Disorientation

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Things are different on college campuses this year. We see inside the drama, with students and staff.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

Prologue: We go to orientation at Arizona State University and meet international students who are trying to make friends. (6 minutes)
Act One: The president of the Black Student Union at the University of Utah fights to keep the B in BSU. (30 minutes)
Act Two: A definition of antisemitism, canceled classes, and angry professors at Columbia University. (16 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there, everybody. It's Ira with a message for our life partners and our potential life partners, which hopefully is you.
0:06.0	We're going to make another Ask Me Anything, bonus episode where I will answer your questions about the show or really just about anything at all that you want to ask.
0:16.6	Email your questions to life partners at thislife.org. Seriously ask anything. And like all our bonus
0:23.4	episodes, this one is only going to be available to our life partners. If you are not a life partner
0:27.0	yet, sign up. And what you get is add free listening, a library of greatest hits right in your
0:32.8	podcast feed. And you get all these bonus episodes. We've made a bunch of them that we are so
0:36.9	proud of.
0:44.7	Try this out for a few weeks. See what you think. You can cancel any time. Go to This AmericanLife.org slash Life Partners. A quick warning. There are curse words that are unbeaped in today's
0:51.4	episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at
0:55.3	our website, This AmericanLife.org. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Emmanuel Barry
1:02.7	filling in for Ira Glass. Okay, school's back. Come with me now. We're going to Tempe, Arizona.
1:08.7	Hello, guys, can I have your attention? Yes, guys, guys.
1:12.6	Arizona State University has set up everything you can think of.
1:16.6	Karaoke, scavenger hunts, axe throwing a mechanical bull to help new students meet each other and make friends.
1:23.6	Are you guys ready to run for? This is international student orientation.
1:29.3	There are almost 400 new students here from India, China, and lots of other countries,
1:35.3	who arrived here alone, looking for any excuse to make a connection.
1:40.3	Like these two uncomfortable-looking guys, Nile and Saude, one wears an ASU cap, the other has stylish black glasses. They both have braces. They talked to my co-worker, Meeky Meek. We just met right now. You guys just met now. Yeah, we just met right now. We clicked. What made you guys click? Well, he was standing there alone. I was standing there alone. So, you know, I was thinking, I'm like, should I go? Should I not? Is it hard to make yourself go up and say hi? Yeah, a bit, you know? Then I decided to, yeah. So, you know, I just went up there. I just said hi. Asked him what his major was. Did you feel any relief when he came up and said hi? Yeah, of course.
2:23.3	There's a thing that I really like, I don't like about myself that I don't really greet people or approach people.
2:25.2	I need people to approach me.
2:29.1	But at the same time, I really want to meet new people, but I don't know how to do that.
2:36.6	Over one million students from all around the world study in the United States, ASU has over 14,000.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from This American Life, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of This American Life and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.