An international student from Vietnam was overjoyed when she discovered that she had been accepted into Miami University. However, after packing up her suntan lotion, she was met with the startling reality that the university was, in fact, located in the good old, frigid Midwest.
From Insider:
When Valerie Do, 19, applied to study at Miami University in 2021, she was excited by the prospect of spending her days lounging on beaches in the sun in Florida, surrounded by palm trees like she'd seen in the movies.
As an international student living in Vietnam, she couldn't visit the university before applying. So when the university sent her an acceptance letter welcoming her to Ohio, Do felt confused.
At first, she wondered whether Ohio might be a district or a county in Florida. But after a quick Google search, her beach fantasy was shattered when she realized she wouldn't be going to the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, as she'd initially thought. She'd be going to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Miami University in Ohio was founded in 1809 and according to its website "bears the name of the Myaamia people whose homelands are here in the Miami Valley." The name of the city of Miami, Florida, is derived from the Native Tequesta name "Mayaimi," believed to mean "big water" or "sweet water," according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
"I realized there are no beaches; it's just a cornfield in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest of America," Do told Insider.
After spending some time researching, Do said she realized Miami University had a good business school. She decided to accept the offer, and she moved from Vietnam to Ohio.
Well, to her credit, it is confusing that there would be two prominent University of Miami's, and that the second one would be located hundreds of miles to the north where it logically should be.
