This is EducationUSA Iran
Adviser: I have the Director of International students and Scholar Services at American University, Ms. Fanta Aw, with us today and she has over fifteen years experience in the field of international education exchange and will be able to answer some of our questions related to the needs of international students.
Thank you for being with us today.
My first question is about what services does your office provide for international students?
Fanta: Sure. My office provides a range of services to students. Some of the most common services that we provide include orientation programs for new students o make sure that our students’ transition from their home culture to the American culture and to our university—that they are fully aware of what the academic culture is here; that they are aware of what are some of the standard American culture practices; that they are aware of what the resources are on campus so that they can be as successful as possible. So orientation is one of the main programs that we provide to all students. Because we understand that when you leave one culture to come to another culture there is a transition period.
We also provide cross-cultural workshops to both international students and American students because we want to make sure that as people come into an environment, whether coming in with different cultural perceptions and notions, that they are able to communicate effectively with each other and that they are able to appreciate each other’s culture, so we offer a lot cross-cultural workshops and sessions for students.
We also do immigration advising to make sure that students, once they are here, that they are not concerned about maintaining their status, so we do a lot of education around immigration responsibilities, so they will know their responsibilities and our role is to help them to make sure that they know how to maintain their status while they are here.
We do a lot of career development with students, we work with a lot of people on campus to make sure that students are making informed decisions about what they want to study, that they are also aware of what are their areas of strength and that they are able to be successful academically. So career development is what we provide. And, we do a lot of one-on-one advising with students. Because many of the students when they first get here really need to find a home away from home. So I often say to students, consider the international student and scholar services office your home away from away from home. If they have any questions related to the university or even Washington DC, they know that they can always come and meet with an adviser in our office. We want them to know that they are here to be supported and there is no question that is small or insignificant. So we want to make sure that they know that have a home here and the office becomes their home while they are here.
We also do leadership development of students because we know that the students that come here to study here are the future leaders in their countries and will be doing a lot of good work with organizations and companies, so one of the things we want to make sure they are able to do when they are here is develop some of their leadership skills that will be useful to them so that they can be productive global citizens once they leave our institution and they move to another part of the world. So those are some of the services.
Adviser: This is great! And what types of problems do international students tend to have related to campus life?
Fanta: I would say some of the most common challenges for students are around academic expectations. Students come from all over the world and they come from very different academic systems. They come from systems where there are different expectations from professors or different expectations from students and many times they come from where English is not their first language so all of a sudden they are spending a lot of time speaking a second or third language for many students and so the academic transition is one of the areas of challenges and concerns for students so that’s a common area that students come to talk to us about. How does the American educational system work? How does the grading system work? Some of the common questions are around: I am taking this class and I am expected to have 20% of my grading in participation. When I am at home I usually go to class, I take my notes, I listen to the lecture, and then I go home. Now I am expected to be part of this culture of engagement with professors. I am not used to that. I am very shy and English is not my first language, so those are some of the things that students come to us with. Another thing that students come to us with is cultural adjustment. Every student, when you leave home, you are leaving your family, you are leaving your friends, you are leaving your community, you are leaving your society, and you are coming to a very different place, so sometimes initially there could be some homesickness so students would come to us and sometimes would say: I am not sure if this was the right perhaps choice for me because they are homesick and many times not knowing that this is a normal part of transitioning. So they’ll come to with those questions and with those challenges and we work with them on that. Those are some of the frequent questions around academic transition and social transition.
Adviser: How do you help them to make friends with American students?
Fanta: Well, there are several ways we do that. First and foremost if they are undergraduate first-year students, we require that they live in the residence halls and living in the residence hall they will generally have a roommate and the roommate will be, nine times out of ten, an American student so they will engage with American students that way. Another way that they will engage with American students is that we have a very active campus life here. We have over 200 clubs and organizations that students can belong to where they’ll get the opportunity to meet American students. That’s another way international students get to meet American students but we also organize a lot of event on campus and off campus. And, we invite American student to those events because we want to make sure that while they are here they have an opportunity to experience the U.S. in many different ways and we also want to make sure that while they are here American students get to benefit from learning from them because it’s a two-way process. They learn from the American students but the American students also learn from them.
Adviser: Right! That’s great. And, what type of assistance do you provide students in locating housing?
There are several ways. We provide what we call a housing search information session and seminars for students. Available housing in the Washington DC area is posted onto the university off-campus housing website so students can search for different places and types of apartments or homes and so forth in the Washington. So the web becomes a very important resource for students in locating housing. In addition during orientation, we have students who themselves live on campus who often assist as volunteers to help students to find and locate housing but also potentially some roommates. So those are the ways in which we help students to locate on and off campus housing.
Adviser: How would you advise about roommate related questions?
Fanta: I would advise for any student, that I think when you leave home where you’ve been accustomed to living in your home and if you are sharing a room you are sharing a room generally with a sibling, a brother or a sister, you are coming into to an environment where most likely you will be sharing a room with a stranger. The beginning is always an adaptation process. What I often say to students is to see this as a learning opportunity. How do you engage with someone who may have a different culture, different perceptions, different ways of life from your own? And we work very closely with students to make sure that they have healthy communication. Because a lot of the roommate situations are around communication. Every one expects the other person to read their mind and we say that’s not how it works, so we really want to make sure that when roommates conflict the first and most important thing is to learn to sit down with whoever your roommate is and many times we will facilitate discussions and dialogue. We believe that one of the best ways to have a sort of a “best roommate” situations is when there is dialogue. And we know that not every student is comfortable with that, so part of the things we provide to students during orientations and beyond is how to have effective dialogue and communication with others, whether it is in a roommate situation, in the classroom, or in other places.
Adviser: What are the difficulties related to social lives?
Fanta: You know, again a lot of times I often say to students when you are at home what was your social life like? And I think one of the most challenging one for anyone is around the notion of friendship. Americans make friends very quickly. Many students come from a culture where you have to know the person for very long time before you can call them your friend. So one of the challenges around social life is defining friendship, and the expectations around friendship. Another big piece I think related to social life has to do with the notion of time. In America, people always, particularly in a place like Washington, you know, people always feel like they are in a rush. Everything is needed now, everything is fast paced so for a lot of students one of the things they have to get adjusted to is this notion of time. You know you might be that at home you would spend two or three hours with a friend over a cup of tea, when you can talk about politics you can talk about culture, about different aspects of your life. For a lot of students initially when they first get here they are amazed by the fact that a lot of things happen through an appointment. A lot of things happen through scheduling time. And they say why is it that we always have to schedule things? Why is it that we can’t just go ahead and stop by and do different things? Those are some of the cultural and social life things that I think students have to be aware of and another piece has to do with where at home everything is structured and where there is someone to tell you generally what you need to do and when and how to get it done, you come to a place where you pretty much have to do it on your own. So this notion of independence takes a little bit of transition for some students. So sometimes it means that they are not really sure what to do with their time. Because maybe when they were in school they were in classes all day from morning to afternoon; now they may have maybe one class on a Monday, and two classes on a Wednesday and maybe two classes on a Friday so the question of time management is very important for students to learn how to do in their social life. So those are some of the things that they need to get adjusted to.
Adviser: What kind of work or work-study opportunities are available to them?
Fanta: Students who come to generally study in the U.S. are allowed to with their immigration status to work on campus during their first year. On a lot of American campuses working on campus means you may be working at a library, you may be working in a bookstore, you maybe working doing research being a research assistant with a professor. Those some the different ways in which students work on campus. And on our campus we have a lot of international students who work on campus. You can work up to 20 hours a week and during any vacation time you can work more than 20 hours a week. But that’s the opportunities available to students during their first year. Once students have been here for about a year or more, depending on their program, they are allowed to do internship for credit. If they are doing internship for credit, they could be placed with a company or non-profit organization or an international organization where they will be working with the organization as part of their academic program, because we believe very strongly in what we call experiential learning. You are not only learning in the class but we want to know if you are able to apply that learning in the real world. So students have the opportunity to work by doing internships, are one of the other ways that students are able to work while they are here.
Adviser: During summer and spring breaks when everyone here has plans with their family, do you have programs and activities for international students?
Fanta: During spring break, a lot of international student generally like to travel within the United States because this is such a big country and there is so much diversity that we often really encourage our students while they are here to explore different parts of the U.S. So a lot of our students tend to travel during that time. We also organize during spring break what we call alternative break program and these programs involve Americans and many times international students where they actually travel and they work with communities where they go. Some of them travel within the U.S. so for example a group may decide to go the New Orleans, to look at the issues of poverty in New Orleans, to learn more about what is happening there. Other groups may decide to go to Thailand and learn about issues of immigrant communities. Some groups may decide to go to places like Colombia, and learn what is going with U.S.-Colombian relations and so forth. So those are some the initiative that allows students to really engage with community activism and community work. That’s some of the ways.
If they are not traveling and they are going to be here in the Washington, DC, area, we organize a lot of programs. We will take them to downtown DC maybe to museums to different things that are going on in Washington those may be some of the things that we are able to do for them while they are here. Same thing with during the summer. Student who stay tend to take classes while they are here during the summer because they have 2 ½ months so that gives them a lot of time to take some of the classes while they are here.
Adviser: Very interesting. Can you help students with their visa questions?
Fanta: Yes. The international students and scholar services office have advisers with expertise related to student visas. So when students have any questions related to their immigration status or their visas, they can come and talk to an adviser, we can answer probably 90% of the questions that they come to us with. If it is something that is so unique, we have relationships with people within the government and we’ll try to get answer to those questions for them.
Adviser: That’s great. Do they have English language difficulties and if yes what kind of help do you provide to improve their English?
Fanta: Most of our students incoming are really strong students. And as strong students they have very strong academic backgrounds, but English may not be their first or even second language. So with that often when they first come to the U.S. we give them an assessment test. The reason we do that is because we want to know what are their areas of strength in English so that the first semester in particular we can make sure that they are taking classes that are appropriate for their levels. So you may have a student who’s really strong with reading and comprehension but may not be as strong in writing. So once we do the assessment then we can have an evaluation and then we share that evaluation with the academic adviser so that we can make sure they are placed in the appropriate level while they are transitioning here.
Also we make sure through our academic support center, we have tutors, that can help them, so if they trying to figure out, how do I write a paper here in the American system because it may be very different from my home system, we have people in the academic support system who can help them with the structure of papers, can help them with how to begin to do more research with their papers. If they are undergraduate students they will generally take the college writing program with our American students so that they can learn how to write better in English and write better within the American system. So those are the ways we provide with support to make sure that they are able to improve their language and writing skills.
Adviser: That’s great. Thank you so much for your time. I think we are done with the questions.
Is there anything you would like to tell our students to add to what you have already told us?
Fanta: You know, I think a lot of time students in making the decision to come to the U.S., it is an important decision. It is an important decision for the student and it is an important decision for their families. And I know that what families in particular and students want to know is if I come to the U.S. what are the support services that they are going to make sure that I am able to achieve my dreams. One of the things about the educational system here in the U.S., really important for the students to know, that once they’ve made this important decision they are not alone. Once they get here they will be able to expect and should want as much support as possible. Because that’s what universities are here to do is to help students succeed and to be able to reach their goals.
Adviser: Thank you very much
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