File this under things you never thought to worry about. The Oklahoma Daily reports that five months into the school year, international students have adjusted to just about everything about American life – except the meal times.

“They eat anything at anytime,” Amélie Plot said.

The French law student said she’s not used to eating early, even with her family.

“In France, when I eat with my family, it’s never before 8 or 8:30,” Plot said. “Here, with my host family, we ate Christmas dinner at 5:30.”

Could you get used to a 5:30 dinner?

We’ve been hearing a lot about how studying abroad changes your definition of home.  Olena found it difficult at first to settle back into life in Ukraine.  For Sebastian, transitioning between Kansas and Bolivia is easy, but he struggled to accept that Kansas now feels as much like home as his birthplace.  Qian too feels she has two homes now, but going back to China is not exactly how she imagined it would be.

Photo by Shai Barzilay

For American college students, time off such as Thanksgiving week, winter break, spring break and summer vacation usually is a time to go home.  But for Chinese students in the U.S., myself included, the cost and distance to get home, combined with the requirements of school work and internships, can sometimes keep us away from home for quite a while.

As a result, the home we go back to is not always the same one we left, or that we imagine in our heads.

For example, I have a 9-year-old cousin, once my sweetest little angel, who I watched grow up. This winter when I went back to Chengdu, I bought her several child-size-10 dresses as Christmas gifts. However, as soon as I met her at the airport, I realized those dresses were too small for her; she was already in 5th grade and in the year since I’d seen her had grown to almost five feet tall!
Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve toiled very hard for this. I know you have.  Some of you may have been planning out your college applications since the early years in high school, while others worked late nights to get things done at the last moment.  I’m sure a few of you are looking at this calmly, holding an early decision acceptance letter in your hand.  Not all of us can be that lucky.  I wasn’t.

Creative commons photo by Flickr user David Morris

I still remember getting deferred from my early decision school, Lafayette College.  I could not have been more heartbroken.  There was nothing I wanted more at that point in time than to be accepted at Lafayette, but I had to move on and start applying to the colleges on my regular decision list. And things turned out pretty well for me later on, but we’ll come back to that.

If you’re in that situation, don’t blame yourself. You’ve just gone through an example of how harsh the U.S. admissions process gets at times, given the huge application pool and limited space for incoming students. I know it is stressful and disappointing to have to start all over, and raise your hopes and optimism yet again.

I had many friends in my high school who got depressed after receiving their first rejection, and didn’t have enough courage to even apply to other schools.  When I would ask them why, they would reply that clearly they were not qualified enough.

This bothered me a lot.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’re searching the web to find webinars and other online events of interest to prospective international students. Check here each Friday to find out what’s coming up in the next week.

Your end of the bargain? If you attend, report back and let us know what you learned! (Use the comments, the Facebook page or just email me – jstahl@voanews.com)

Coming up next week:

January 31

IBM International Student Virtual Webinar Career Fair
More details: https://events.webdialogs.com/portal/wipevents/register.php?id=c45ccde66b&l=en-US

Also coming up soon:

February 6-7

The Economist: Which MBA? MBA Fair
More details: http://registermbafair.whichmba.com/
Read the rest of this entry »

While spending my winter break with my family in Bolivia, I received a message from a school friend in Kansas asking me, “When are you home?” It was a simple question, but it caught me off guard. She just wanted to know when I was planning on getting back to Kansas, but I was struck by how she was calling Kansas “home.” That was mind-blowing for me.

Is this home now?

I had never stopped to think about it before but, having adapted very well to my new environment, collecting more and more personal possessions there with time and having spent 11 out of 12 months there last year, it would be foolish not to consider it something of a home.

But does it replace the place that saw my birth and first steps (more like my first twenty years)? I wasn’t comfortable even thinking about that!
Read the rest of this entry »

Vietnamese people celebrate the Lunar/Chinese New Year as Tet.  It’s a meaningful occasion for every Vietnamese – a time for family reunions, greetings and making New Year’s wishes.

This is the second year that I did not celebrate the Tet holidays in my home country. But happily, since I am living among the biggest Vietnamese community in the States, I still celebrate with my relatives.  And my Vietnamese friend, who is working in San Francisco, drove a long way to visit me in Orange County and enjoy the Tet atmosphere and foods here for a day.  It is not 100% the same as back in Vietnam, but I did have a happy time.

There are many Tet market fairs, music shows and traditional games organized for Vietnamese people living here to buy things for their Tet preparations and to join in Tet activities during these days in Little Saigon. You can see some of what goes on here for Tet in these pictures. What was your Tet like?

My friend Vu and I walking around the Tet market in Little Saigon.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Glossary of Confusing Words is back, with this great suggestion from Nader:

credit in the courses may be confused with credit in banking

Credit is one of those English words with lots of different uses.  It can refer to money (“credit card,” to buy something “on credit”) or reputation (“you have to give her credit,” “he is a credit to his family”). But it also has a specific meaning when it comes to academics.

Credits are units used to measure the contribution that an academic course makes towards attaining your degree.  Universities require you to take a certain number of credits to graduate, and a certain number of credits each semester to maintain your status as a full-time student.

Each course offered by a university is assigned a value in credits, usually based on how much time you’re expected to spend on it (hence credits are also often called “credit-hours”). Not every university differentiates between courses – some may simply assign the same credit value to every course and require you to take a certain number of courses per semester.
Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Michigan State University, we just found out about two virtual career fairs tailored to international students currently in the U.S., which we neglected to include in last week’s list of webinars:

January 25-26

Big 10 International Career Fair
More details: http://international.careereco.net/students-alumni/virtual-career-fair-registration/

Read the rest of this entry »

For those that are unfamiliar with the Chinese New Year (also known as the Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year in the U.S.), it is one of the most important celebrations among Chinese populations around the world.

Yee sang, a traditional Chinese New Year dish (Creative commons photo by “Alpha”)

On Chinese New Year’s eve, the entire extended family will gather for a reunion dinner, which is a time of fellowship.

In Malaysia, where I’m from, no reunion dinner goes without a tossing of yee sang (usually a mixture of shredded vegetables, raw fish, sauces and other ingredients), my favorite dish of the celebration. The tossing of yee sang symbolizes the action of wishing one another a great year ahead filled with abundant health, prosperity and happiness.

Another thing I love about the Chinese New Year are the ang pows (red packets or hóngbāo), which are packed with money, and are given out by married couples until the last day of the celebration (Chap Goh Meh). The ang pows are the best part for almost every kid and non-married individual.

This Chinese New Year is a very different one for me, and for many other international students. It will be my first Chinese New Year celebration away from home, and I am beginning to feel just how different it will be.

[Check out some more stories from the Chinese New Year]
Read the rest of this entry »

Once again, we haven’t got any webinars to share for next week. But once again the internet has come through with something equally useful to tide us over until February, when things kick back into high gear.

A couple of people asked us this week about studying for the TOEFL, and in looking for good resources I stumbled on “TOEFLtv,” the official YouTube channel of the TOEFL, which has explanations of the test and tips from teachers and students. Worth checking out if you’re prepping to take the exam soon.

Two examples, plus the calendar of upcoming webinars after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago we discussed how difficult it is to get into an American medical school as an international student.  Many of them don’t consider international applicants at all, and there’s very little scholarship money available.

[Read about applying to medical school as an international student]

But a small number of international students DO get into U.S. medical schools each year, and Promise is determined to be one of them.  Here’s his story of how he hopes to defy the odds.

(Photos by University of Nottingham and Jason Trommetter)

I’d previously thought that getting into medical school in the U.S. was as easy as eating pizza, until my glance fell on an excerpt from Yale University’s webpage, which warns international students studying pre-med and dreaming of medical school to, perhaps, consider waking up.

I was shocked (not exaggerating, I felt my brain scamper around for blood vessels in order to keep me alive), and I booked an appointment immediately with my academic advisor to change my major.

Here’s the truth of the situation: Only a “spoonful” of American medical schools accept international students – I can’t even say a “handful,” because to be realistic, a handful is too much. For the few that admit international students, an even smaller amount give limited scholarships. And a lot of that altruism is through loans, most of which need a co-signer. Now, tell me, who is the “Mother Teresa” who will cosign your $200,000 loan? I don’t mean to scare anyone, but only a miracle can guarantee you a form of aid, and you have to know your relationship to whichever God backs you up.

But I did not change my major that day.
Read the rest of this entry »

I went to college in Romania, studying Psychology at the University of Bucharest. From the beginning I was involved in extracurricular activities, from the school to the national level. I didn’t even think about them as extracurricular – I just loved doing things, working with students from other disciplines, coordinating teams, organizing events and going to training sessions where professionals inspired us to dream big.

In 2006, when I first experienced American culture during a summer trip, I was impressed by an educational system based on the liberal arts principles I had always instinctively pursued. It reminded me of the Renaissance, when a person was encouraged to develop a variety of talents and when great ideas came from combining disciplines in new and exciting ways.

The value of bringing together different ideas and approaches stuck with me when I returned to Romania, and continued to define my approach when I came back to America to partake in that liberal arts education. This system has impressed me so much not only because of its idealistic educational principles but also for more pragmatic reasons: In the changing reality of the 21st century, single-mindedness and studying only one field are not sufficient to prepare ourselves for the future.

[Read more about extracurricular activities in American education]

Time and again I’ve found the value of connecting my academic pursuits to activities outside the classroom and doing those things that, although not “required,” turned out to be essential.
Read the rest of this entry »

When we tell stories of international students sharing their culture, we’re usually talking about their native foods or traditional holidays. But Augsburg College brings us this story of a freshman who is helping his classmates understand how a Yemeni views human rights and peace.

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 2007, my public speaking professor challenged me and my classmates to each make a presentation that was so exciting it was never to be forgotten. To make the task achievable, he granted us the freedom to chose from any subject we desired.

The subjects started off simple but entertaining. In my first presentation, I made the class sing to a song I liked, I didn’t even know the words, we just hummed away to my lead. Some one brought a live snake to a presentation and sent nearly half the class on their way running for safety.

A few weeks into the semester though, something extraordinary happened. A classmate from Kenya told a passionate story of his life experience as a child soldier. And then suddenly, as if a match of truth had been lit, the topics started to gravitate towards a more personal and sensitive nature that ranged from freedom, racism, violence, war and unjust persecution.

Read the rest of this entry »