My name is Tseten Gelek and I am Tibetan born in Nepal. I did my schooling in Nepal and I transferred to Queens College. I felt welcomed at my first visit to United States, but I was very nervous about how I was going to approach my first class at Queens College. The first day of my class at Queens College was on Tuesday, 28th of August, 2007. Coming from a school where there were only students from one country, the first experience that I had during my first day at CUNY Queens College was the most beautiful scene of people or students from diverse backgrounds of culture, nation and religion coping with each other in creating a very studious and peaceful environment within the boundaries of the college. Seeing different faces from different races made me feel relieved and gave me confidence as I presented myself in the college and classroom.

Being the loved and cared one in my bordered circle of life within my families and my cultural parameter, I felt so nervous and afraid to face a world which looks totally different to me. Living within a society with a majority of Tibetans, I had only my culture, the teachings of my teachers and parents to help me adjust myself to this world. Throughout my life I have always looked at foreigners with love, care and welcome. The College is very big and covers a very huge area that I had to wander around a lot to go to classes. But the students at Queens College helped me a lot in finding my way when I interacted with them. The greatest thing that I experienced was how the values of my culture helped me interact with the students and the teachers of different cultures. It made me realize no matter how the values and the culture differ they always have basic similarity and moral sense of unity and love. With my first footsteps into the class, I was nervous. It was a Political Science class and there were some students and a lady teacher already in the class before all the students were in the class. Seeing a teacher waiting for students was a very rare scene compared to the school where I studied back in Nepal. In our school we have to be present before the teacher arrives in the class. We, the students, wait for the teacher to come to class and we have to stand up when the teacher arrives in the class as a sign of respect to the teacher. This was totally different from what I experienced here. When the class started, the professor started taking attendance. I could hear names of students with different last names, students belonging to different races of people, but I didn’t hear my name. So I had my name registered by the professor in the attendance book. The fascinating thing was the various types of surnames of students from all around the world that made me feel that I was one part of this class representing my nation Tibet; I felt very proud of myself.