Meet Our Students
Rebecca Carter
 I came to City College as a transfer student from a tiny liberal arts college in suburban Arkansas. People quiver at such information, mistaking my love for bagels with cream cheese and lox as phony and uninspired. But I grew up in New York City, on the Upper West Side, and my love for all things New York is real and deep. Escaping to the South for a year and a half was only a way for me to reflect on the city that has made me me.
So it was not unusual that I came to City College to further my understanding, and enhance my experience with truly unique opportunities. I envisioned an environment where passion and interest flowed from both professor and student, where mastery and understanding of subject matter represented only one of the many aims of my fellow peers. I was far from disappointed, and soon found that my expectations had been surpassed as my classmates clamored for the opportunity to speak and have their opinions voiced. It was in my Psychology of Religion course, my first Jewish Studies class, that I was most impressed with my peers’ vigor to learn. It was here that the classroom became almost a sacred setting, where abstract concepts were slowly unpacked with prudent inquiry. It soon became, simply, a place where I loved to learn. A few months later, I declared a major in Jewish Studies.
My family and friends responded enthusiastically to my
decision, though some friends thought it was a bit strange that a shikse would be so interested in a culture that did not resemble her own. People’s immediate response is, “Oh, are you Jewish?" Maybe some day I will choose to be chosen, but for now I am content studying about this ancient and evolving culture from an academic perspective.
During the past four semesters, I have studied contemporary Jewish literature, a course that complemented my English major, looked at the stories from the bible from an academic and analytical perspective, taken a trip to the Dominican Republic to explore the mixture of Jewish and Caribbean culture. In addition to having declared an English and Jewish Studies major, I am currently enrolled in the Secondary Education program, studying techniques to
become a high school English teacher here in New York City. While learning to teach from a methodical approach
will certainly be helpful in my future career, the ways in which I became an impassioned and perpetual learner here at City College, particularly in the Jewish Studies Program, will always inform who I am, and who I want to be.
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