“Yes mom, I promise I am doing fine. No dad, you don’t need to send me more food; I eat plenty and healthy at the dining hall. Mom, I told you already, I’ll be with a group of friends at the party tonight, I won’t go anywhere alone. Love you guys too!” This is just one of the many phone conversations held daily between my parents and I. Although I sound a bit impatient, the truth is, if it wasn’t for their support, I might not make here at St. John’s on my own.
I may only be five hours away from home, but sometimes, on those occasional lonely nights, it feels like I am thousands of miles away from home. However, I know this isn’t true, and if I really had to, I could jump on a bus or plane and go home. This type of reassurance has helped me to better transition into this new life of being a college student. On one hand, things in New York were foreign to me. I was forced to adjust to living in a large city with a lot of unfamiliar people. On the other hand, this was “my country.” I was born and raised here. Aside from the unfamiliar and diverse people, I felt pretty comfortable. My language is spoken here and the beliefs I grew up with in the United States are OK to be practiced here.
As I began to look around at St. Johns, I realized that not everyone was from the United States. In fact, diverse and dedicated, the students at St. Johns represent 38 states and 148 foreign countries. I know and understand how hard transitioning is for any American college student, but what about students who are not American? How will they learn to adjust and how different will transitioning be for them, if it is different at all.
When I reflected on my own college experience, I asked myself if a student’s country of origin affected their transition to college life. Would international students feel out of place in an American school? If students practiced certain beliefs at home, would they be able to, or be willing to practice them here at school? I never considered the fact that despite where a student is from, going to college is a big step, and no one takes it lightly, whether you are American or foreign to the country. Of course, things are not as familiar to them as they are to me, but as I mentioned before, not everything was familiar to me either.
Ira Aleksova, an international student from Macedonia, is quite a distance from home. However, despite the fact that she can’t see her parents on the weekends, their support for her as a student in America stays strong. In fact, it is equally as strong as any American student’s parents. Ira explained that the support of her family and friends back home is helpful. While she is thousands of miles away, her supporters’ back home call everyday, send packages, and send letters. According to Ira, her ability to easily transition to St. Johns has a lot to do with the support.
When she first came to America to attend St. Johns, Ruisa Scheffel, an international student from Brazil, felt lonely and homesick. She left behind family, friends, and a boyfriend. Eventually, over time, she made friends, and adjusting became so much easier. At certain times, she still felt lonely and homesick, but only when a special holiday came around.
After reading these results, a funny feeling came over me. These girls are not alone when they say that they occasionally feel homesick and miss the comfort of home. Is it weird that I feel the same way, even though I am from America? A student from the United States, who wished to remain anonymous, is able to see her family from time to time when they visit New York City. In times when they are not around, they make sure to call and keep in touch through internet, phone, and mail. Despite the closeness is distance, this student feels the pang of being away from home for the first time. This student experiences loneliness on the weekends when no one is around. However, this is common to both American students and international students.
The similarities in the way these three students transitioned into college amazed me. I assumed that distance and country of origin determined how a student would transition into college. When the American student was asked if adjusting to college was difficult, she admitted it was. “I think any change in life can be hard to adjust to.” On the survey, she commented on international students and said, “International students who are thrown into a different culture adjust differently. There is a language barrier and they are in a whole new culture.”
However, surprisingly, the international students did not feel this way at all. Ira felt as though she didn’t have any major problems adjusting to school, just because she was from Macedonia. In fact, she said transitioning was easy and after the first month, she even understood the professors. Some American students still haven’t even conquered that skill of understanding.
Adjusting to college life has a lot of factors behind it. For one thing, a student’s country of origin, as I am discussing, seems as though it would play a big role. However, I am discovering that it does not. According to College Student Development, “students use their values as standards of evaluation in determining what is good or bad, true or false, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, important or unimportant.” I feel this is a major factor in determining how a student transitions to school. In fact, it does have a lot in common with a student’s country of origin, but it overrides that factor. Value plays a big role in transitioning. The book also states that “the values of college students are influenced by family, friends, religion, personal experiences, and societal factors.” For example, the American student I surveyed commented that on the weekends, she enjoys staying on campus and her beliefs play a big role in this decision. Ira and Ruisa both enjoy going out on the weekends because that is what they did at home.
Another factor that plays into transitioning is conformity. Conformity is adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard, and is often the result of group or peer pressure. Usually, the person adopts the new behavior or attitude as his or her own. This statement is true for a majority of students, no matter what country they are from. The two international students made friends once they moved here, and by natural instinct, might have felt pressured to conform to other’s beliefs and values. The American student and international students all stayed true to their beliefs, despite what country they came from. Although they conformed to groups, it wasn’t the country of origin that determined how well they transitioned to college.
My results were quite surprising to me because I assumed things that were not true about international students. In my autobiography about this report, I wrote that “I saw the way my friends transitioned compared to me and I caught on to the fact that the country a person grows up in will determine how they will transition. At this time, I want to know how others feel about this and how their beliefs affect their transition.” Indeed, I did find out how international students transition, and I was wrong to write this in my paper. I did see the way my friends transitioned compared to me, but when it came time to these other students, things were not all that different. I found that just because a student doesn’t grow up in a certain country, doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t adjust the same way as American students, or the students in that country.
Even though a student’s country of origin is important when discussing value and transitioning, it isn’t the determining factor in how that person will necessarily transition. I found that most students adjust to college the same way. At first, they make feel homesick and alone, but eventually, over time, things change. They all make friends and conform to certain groups. Having support from home is also a factor that helps the transitioning process. I found that despite what county a student comes from, transitioning is a developing process that takes time, no matter who you are.
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