By Adar
I've been spending a fair amount of time with two of my Israeli roommates, who come from very distinct backgrounds. Iris is a Sabra. She was born and raised in a small town nearby, made up of almost all Israelis. She did the IDF and then worked in Tel Aviv for a year; then she started studying Communications and Sociology in Haifa. She's a tough girl, but with a friendly smile and jokester attitude. She wakes up late, stays up late, and is thoroughly annoyed (rightfully so) if there's too much noise in the morning. She goes out with friends often, and is holed up in her room studying for finals much of the time I've been here. I met Iris the first hour I arrived, and she offered me delicious food that she and a friend had just made. She's a no-nonsense kind of person, and gets right down to the point of things.
Rawan has an incredibly sweet voice, and is staunchly clean. She is an Arab Israeli, and grew up in a town nearby where everyone speaks Arabic. She's actually more comfortable speaking in English than in Hebrew. Today she told Leah and I that she's taking fourteen classes. Yes. fourteen classes for 24 credits this semester. The maximum I'd take is five (maybe six if you count a cardio class). She spends almost all of her time studying these days, and says things like "Oh you play guitar? That's wonderful, I'd love to hear it sometime---but not during finals". But for them, finals last over a month and I don't know how I could go without taking a few breaks. I'm really glad to be living with Rawan. She's a very nice person, and I'm also very interested in living first hand with a culture I have been only minimally exposed to. Or at the very least learning what on earth she does that makes her food smell so good.
Israeli students are usually at least 21, because they have gone through the IDF for a few years before they start studies. They're on a three year packed course, and everyone I've spoken with here is a double major. As I said, finals last over a month. Round one that is. There are two opportunities to take every final, because it's often around 80% of your grade for the class.
Unlike the undergrad college experience in the US, where students spend four years discovering what they want to be and becoming more and more involved with extracurricular activities, college students in Israel are just here to study. Of course, they often have rampant social lives as well, but the whole concept of greek life or an active student body just wouldn't work here. Because they're at a different part of their lives already than American undergrads, they're ready to get right to the workforce -- they won't graduate until they're 24 or 25.
In contrast, the international exchange students here have Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays off every week. We take four or five classes during the semester, and are pretty much all 20 or 21 (though of course I'm still a little 19 year old). We get to go on very regularly planned excursions all over the country, and all of our classes are pass/fail. So really, if the Israeli resent our carefree attitude and defined bubble, I wouldn't be surprised at all.