First Part:
College can be hard sometimes. Students can be mean sometimes. Professors can be unfair sometimes. But sometimes it can hit one student harder than the other, and sometimes it happens without anybody even realizing it.
The U.S. has the world’s largest international student population, with nearly 600,000 students choosing to broaden their education and life experience in the U.S, according to the website www.voanews.com. In the mid-1950’s international student enrollment was reaching 35,000 and has improved over the past years. The website states that nearly 4 percent of all students enrolled in higher-level education are international students, and the numbers are growing.
Research shows that non-white students are not the only students at risk for experiencing ethnic and racial discrimination and culture shock. International students are also at great risk. Although university officials have tried to reduce ethnic and racial discrimination, researchers have not found significant reductions. The combination of ethnic and racial discrimination and homesickness can produce feelings of loneliness, alienation, depression, lower self-esteem, stress, chronic medical health problems and anxiety.
Discrimination experienced or perceived by international students can be harmful to their identities. In 2003, the European Journal of Social Psychology published the article “Constructing a minority group out of shared rejection” written by Schmitt, Spears, and Branscombe.
Schmitt, Spears and Branscombe found through path analysis that, in international students, perceived discrimination led to lower self-esteem and higher identification with other international students. They also state that identification with other international students led to an increase in self-esteem. This suggests that, under the stress of feeling discriminated against, international students seek out identification with other international students. Thus they counteract the negative effect of discrimination on their self-esteem.
Students coming to the U.S. may encounter difficulties beginning as early as obtaining permission to pursue education. Immigration regulations and interviews have become burdensome enough to discourage students from applying to U.S. institutions, according to www.universitiesintheusa.com. Aside from entrance obstacles, many international students are confronted with discrimination early upon entering the U.S. and it is a difficult reality for those who have never experienced it in their home country.
Although international students are important to the academic field for the different perspectives they offer, few services are typically provided to them by their host university. This situation is unacceptable because international students are very susceptible to culture shock. In a study of international students in 11 countries in 1979, Klineberg and Hull found that about 70 percent of international students either experienced or knew someone who experienced discrimination. The two authors wrote in their book “At a foreign university: An international study of adaptation and coping” that loneliness, a component of homesickness, seemed to be related to perceived discrimination. Klineberg and Hull state that those who perceive more discrimination also feel lonelier.
In 2007, Jenny Lee and Charles Rice from the University of Arizona researched the experience of international students and found that many international students were confronted with discrimination early upon entering the U.S. And it became a difficult reality for those who have never experienced discrimination in their home country. Lee and Rice reported that feelings of discomfort were exacerbated in classrooms where international students felt ignored in lessons or excluded by other students. Already feeling like an outsider, insecurities are heightened when they are left out of students’ study groups or social events. In some cases, international students felt unwelcome or distanced from faculty because of their personal sensitivity about their limited English abilities. Lee and Rice also found that some felt genuine aversion on the part of professors unwilling to be flexible with accommodation to non-standard speakers of English and were frustrated that people did not have empathy for how hard they work.
This research also states that international students are also often subject to misperceptions about their culture and so to easy stereotyping. International students’ explanation for this phenomenon is that Americans lack any desire to understand another culture.
International students may perceive more discrimination because of their non-American status, according to the Journal of Psychology article “An Exploratory Study of Perceived Discrimination and Homesickness” written by Poyrazli and Lopez. They may speak English with an accent, and they may belong to a visible racial or ethnic minority group. Regardless of the reason, it is important to note that a higher level of perceived discrimination could impede students’ acculturation or adjustment into their new environment and negatively affect students’ mental health
In 2000, Ying Lee and Tsai Lee compared in the article “Cultural orientation and racial discrimination” published in the Journal of Community Psychology that Chinese immigrant students with Chinese American students. They found that Chinese immigrant students were more likely to be separated or alienated from mainstream culture and more likely to experience discrimination than were Chinese American students.
Second Part
Frank Schwarz, 30, was for four years an international student at Winthrop University. During his master’s degree he worked as graduate assistant at the International Center where he worked closely with international students on campus. After his graduation he started to work as accountant for a company called Lance.
At the age of 17, Schwarz came to the U.S. and started his study at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. After four years in college he not only walked out with his undergrad degree but also with a master’s degree in accounting.
“I loved the job and the International Center,” said Schwarz. “It was a place where I felt like home rather than a place where I had to work. Through my work there I met a lot of great international students who became my close friends.”
Schwarz was often the first contact person for the international students at Winthrop. No matter what concerns, problem or questions they had, Schwarz was the person they wanted to talk to.
“The most offices and staff members at Winthrop are not equipped or do not know how to deal with international students,” Schwarz said. “This can be very frustrating for some students, but the people at the International Center try to help them as much as possible.”
Schwarz said that for students from other countries life is very different in the U.S. It is different from where they are coming from but that is part of the challenge when somebody studies abroad. However, for him the U.S. system seems to make it sometimes harder than it should be, and this can discourage students.
Schwarz said that international students face ethnic and racial discrimination at Winthrop but in most cases that happens because people do not know how to deal with international students or are not aware of the differences these students are facing in the U.S.
Feeling like an outsider in college can have severe consequences for international students. Schwarz said that in most cases they do not know anybody when they arrive in the U.S. Therefore a lot of them experience loneliness and feel misunderstood. Often international students develop strong bonds with other students from another country because they can identify with each other.
“The International Center at Winthrop does the best it can to support the international student and to be there for them whenever they need somebody,” Schwarz said. “American students and Winthrop faculty staff should try to be more aware of the international students and should not be afraid of talking to them.”
Third Part
Arnold Komola is a 25-year-old business student at Winthrop University. He came to the U.S. for his education and left his whole life he knew back home in Zimbabwe.
The first semester at college he had a hard time adapting to the new country and culture. At Winthrop he was the only student from Zimbabwe, and there was no one he could relate or talk to. “I felt lonely. But it was not really that I wanted to go home. I was just missing the feeling that I belong somewhere,” Komola said.
During his time in college he experienced situations where he felt discriminated against and seen as not equal to everybody else. One of his accounting professors always encouraged students to seek an internship, and this professor connected a lot of students with companies he knew.
However, when Komola used the opportunity to talk to the professor about an internship and if he had some advice, the response he got was not the response the professor normally gives to a student. Komola said that the professor was discouraging and gave Komola the feeling that he did not even want to talk to him.
But this was not the only time that Komola said he was treated unfair by this professor. In class most of the time the professor ignores Komola through avoiding eye contact with him and not including him in group discussions, Komola said.
“I had the feeling that he does not like me from the first time I met him,” Komola said.”It is not because that is just the way he deals with students. It is because he deals with American students in a friendlier and more enthusiastic way.” Komola does not know for sure why the professor treats him differently but he said that the professor has problems with talking to students who do not speak English properly.
Brooke Wadsworth is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. In his article “The Role of Identity Gaps, Discrimination, and Acculturation in International Students’ Educational Satisfaction in American Classrooms” published by the journal Communication Education he writes that together, with two of his colleagues, he examined a model of international students’ educational satisfaction in the U.S.
Wadsworth said that students and teachers with similar frames of reference are better able to communicate with one another with relative ease, as they are familiar with the language and norms of classroom interaction.
However, when cultural discrepancies are present, such as those between international students and American peers or instructors, problematic classroom communication is likely to occur. This can lead to a dissatisfying and potentially stressful educational experience for the international student.
“It is hard enough to put yourself out there and talk with everybody you meet in a language that you have not down pat,” Komola said. “So you do not need somebody who makes you feel more unsecure as you already are.”
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