Week 2: Ethnography Results

This week was the first actual week where we started making observation on the A&M transportation environment.

Excel (router #22)

Worthy Observations

• People who enter the bus by themselves are not very chatty in the mornings.
• I found out that girls at the sorority houses are a very interesting subgroup. They are very chatty (in a good sense) and always talk in high pitched voices when greeting each other.
• Gentleman do not always (almost never) get up to offer their seat to the ladies. There is in fact a Facebook group about this gesture. I did not have the chance to observe this reaction of both genders on people with disabilities.

Ethnic Background
I rode bus route #22, called Excel, which passes through several apartment complexes such as the Gables, Campus View, the Cambridge, and more importantly the sorority and fraternity houses. One of the most important things to notice is that people are pretty much segregated according to the complex in which they live. For example, people who live at the sorority and fraternity houses are mostly white Americans. In contrast, people who live at Plantation Oaks are mostly Asian. This was concluded from seeing where people got on and off the bus.

Eating Habits
I started the morning route at about 8:30 AM. Most people ate during the morning (in fact I don't think I saw anybody eating at any other time). Some of them drank coffee; others had cereal; and a few people had granola bars and fruit. I noticed that it was mostly female White Americans who ate during the morning; particularly girls from sorority houses and surrounding apartments.

Communication Environment
Most people engaged in conversations with other people. However, I noticed that most people only engaged in conversations with people they knew. From time to time, strangers would strike into conversations. This was particularly true in the afternoons.