Well I guess I'll touch on this with what I know.
- Detroit is not the place anybody pictures a Cal Tech or John Hopkins. If you wanted unique, that is very unique. If you wanted me to picture a prestigious school inside of some dump hole like that, it's not realistic.
- I actually think most American universities put some restrictions on who is playing to undergrads because those are serious sports being played at university level. It's used to for shifting into the NFL and so on, so I don't think you can just "play" if you wanted to. If you weren't let into the university during undergrad to play on the school's sports team, then you aren't playing on that school's sports team.
- As for rap, you'll probably want someone who knows more rap than me but you can probably just pick any style of rap that you feel like since females can realistically be interested in any genre.
- For activities in Detroit, probably better to get from someone else. My experience of that place is less than pretty.
edited 4th Jul '11 3:40:07 PM by breadloaf
Thanks for the feedback. The inspiration for the fictional "Edsel University" is Johns Hopkins medical school, which has it's campus in notoriously crime-ridden East Baltimore. It was actually the setting for The Wire. I'm using inner-city Detroit as a proxy for Baltimore, although I understand there are differences.
As for the football, the student wasn't an undergraduate at Edsel so I guess he can't be on the actual football team. What about a casual, grad students and faculty team?
Well you do have to remember that when John Hopkins was there originally, it was an okay place in East Baltimore (as far as I understand it). Detroit has been a blue collar town for some time but I guess it could have such an event as well, though it's one of those things that if it didn't happen in reality (such as the John Hopkins event) then you wouldn't ever believe it in fiction.
As for a casual sports team, that can probably happen. Football is well loved, I can see faculty and grad students coming together to form a team just to play.
I'm thinking of writing a story about American science Ph D students. This is "write what you know" situation, except that I'm not American. So I have a few questions. The characters study at a fictional research-focused university in inner-city Detroit. Put Cal Tech in the Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore and you've got some idea of it. First, is it possible for a science Ph D student to play on the university's football team, or would he be too busy? If not, what would a Ph D student who was interested in sports do that would fit with his schedule? Second, if a female student in her twenties was a rap fan, who would she be listening to? My only knowledge of rap is from Glee, so it's difficult to think of someone who isn't a dinosaur and wouldn't be actively offensive to a female fan. Bonus points if they would plausibly have a concert in Detroit. Third, I want one of the students to regularly interact with people outside academia, but who are still interested in what she's doing. What could she do in Detroit that wouldn't get in the way of her studies?