We’re all used to life in Buffalo. It’s cold- we deal with it. It snows- we deal with it. That’s just life. Sometimes time away from our way of life is a welcomed change. So, travel to an island home with sun, surf and palm trees. About a year ago, that was 19-year-old, Megan Rhoden’s home. Today, she’s at Buffalo State from the Aloha state of Hawaii.
Megan comes to 1300 Elmwood Ave from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She’s a sophomore Interior Design major… always working with colored pencils and model houses.
“[Interior Design] is surprisingly a lot of work but I love it! Most people think it’s going to be a breeze then they see how much work we have to do.”
Megan is at Buffalo State with the National Student Exchange program. The program allows students at participating colleges and Universities to travel and live at different campuses across the United States and Canada for up to two semesters. She is one of two exchange students from Hawaii now living on campus at Buffalo State.
“NSE brings people from across the country to some place new- some place out of their comfort zone,” says Christine Cali, Buffalo State’s Student Exchange director. “Going away not only creates a sense of independence, but every door of life is opened – culturally, academically, and socially.”
Obviously, there’s a huge cultural difference between Western New York and the islands of Hawaii and their culture. Megan brings a lot of that ‘island attitude’ with her to Buffalo State.
“It’s called pigeon,” she says. “It’s like, Hawaiian slang- you know, like how you guys say ‘pop’ instead of soda.”
Then she spoke some Hawaiian slang they use while surfing on the Pacific shores.
“Pau means done and a piko is your bellybutton and you guys here say, ‘hey can you hold this real fast?’ We say, ‘hold this fast-kine’ – it’s a Hawaii thing.”
Probably the most noticeable difference to any visitor from Hawaii would be Buffalo’s weather, but the change is what Megan likes.
“Of course there’s going to be snow here. It’s one of the reasons why I got away- the weather’s just… different!”
However, Megan is just now getting the chance to experience Buffalo State to the fullest. During her first semester here, the college over-booked its dorms (like every fall) and forced Megan to stay in the Adam’s Mark hotel downtown. For the whole fall semester, she needed to time her day with the inconsistent city bus schedule.
“Some days it would come super late and others it would come early, so I always tried to get to the stop pretty early,” but to her, that’s just a new experience in the city. “In Hawaii, it only takes a couple of hours to drive around the whole state, so it’s definitely a change.”
But she didn’t seem too upset at the college for overbooking. In fact, her island attitude showed with her ‘no problems, no worries’ attitude.
That’s just life- they gave me a place to stay, the beds were big- and all of us at the hotel really got to know each other pretty well! It’s so good to be away from home and be able to break out of my shell.”