Statistics from Syracuse University show that international students make up about 10 percent of its total student population. While we celebrate the diversity of our student community, we should not forget that international students are also more vulnerable to difficulties in their lives. Therefore, I believe that SU should take the initiative and devote more resources for international students to help them make the transition to a new environment.

International students are having a tough time adjusting to their American lives as a result of the language and cultural barriers. The language barrier is the major obstacle especially for those who come from a non-English speaking country — for example, China. Chinese students have learned a decent number of English words from their English courses in China, but are less familiar with their stylistic uses. Students, therefore, usually fail to understand their slang-speaking fellow American students.

The second obstacle is the cultural barrier. Culture influences people’s minds so much that people from different cultures dress differently, talk differently and socialize differently. Making the transition to a new environment usually entails cultural assimilation. But we need to ask ourselves if international students are ready to be culturally assimilated.

What international students end up doing when they fail to overcome the two obstacles are (take Chinese students for example) staying in their Chinese groups and not coming out. They stay at home and study (good for those who care about their academic performance) or sleep in and play computer games (shame on those who do not care about their academic performance). In some extreme cases, they drop out and return to their home country.

SU should care about them as they constitute an important part of the student community. Here are two solutions I suggest that will make a difference:

1) A systematic program to familiarize new international students with American life is imperative. One of the sessions would be, for example, how to order food — learn names of delis and drinks. I suggest SU follow the University of Southern California, where various required life-skill programs are offered to the university’s large number of international students.

2) Peer mentor programs need to extend beyond academic mentoring and combine with counseling, too. Besides, more mentors who have international experiences are needed. Mentors can be good counselors who offer valuable life suggestions if they understand what their international mentees are going through.

Jiayue Wang
Public Relations Master’s student
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

Published on December 2, 2013 at 1:56 am