Nowadays, a great many of international students come to universities and clolleges in United States (U.S). Growing in a different culture, they tend to have distinct problems compared with local American students. College counselors often need to make some adjustment of the theories and approaches they use to help international students. The article selected discussed the common stressors and the coping strategies of international students, as well as the implication to college counselors when working with international students. One of the common stressors to international students is the adjustment difficulty. Immersed in a different culture and a new environment, it is normal for international students to feel more stressful to adapt …show more content…
This tendency may be due to the heterogeneous nature of this special population. Some of the international students may assume that college counselors may not understand their experiences and feelings because of the differences, while some other international students are not familiar with the professional counseling services and are reluctant to make use of them. Considering international students’ less active participation in traditional counseling, colleges counselor could develop some program to facilitate international students’ understanding of counseling services and reduce their apprehension. In addition, college counselors should also make use of other non-traditional counseling approaches to help international students achieve a higher level of adjustment. For example, college counselors can implement some psycho-educational programs, mentoring programs, prevention services and some support groups. The new student orientations are a good opportunities for counselors to help international students get familiar with the helping services available on campus. Counselors can also use this platform to explain some cultural and educational differences to international students. In this way, they would be better prepared and not attribute themselves as the sources of adjustment
The minority students should have a higher tendency to experience stress than their counterparts. Researchers found that stressors are common in academic settings and are mostly associated with their language, nationality and cultural backgrounds. The historical alienation and length of residency have an impact on these groups (Rienties, Beausaert, Grohnert, Niemantsverdriet, & Kommers, 2012). Male and female students experience stress differently. They frequently vary in how they experience, perceive and handle stressful life events. The possible explanation for such difference
In the article, “Colleges Adapt to New Kinds of Students from Abroad,” Karin Fischer (2011) explains the increase of foreign students in U.S. universities leads to make more problems in campus and how universities are trying to overcome those problems and help foreign students to adapt to campus. Fischer explains the increase of the foreign undergraduate students due to the support from foreign governments. Fischer quotes Wesley Young, the director of services for international students and scholars at the University of California at Davis, to discuss that the increase of foreign undergraduate students especially requires more care and help than graduate students. While older students know what they need to do and what to do in U.S. university,
We have to take in consideration that William Zinsser wrote the essay “College Pressures” in 1978, almost thirty years ago. In the modern society today, I believe that we have even more pressure than the students in the seventies. The author listed four main pressures: economic, parental, peer, and self-induced pressures, beside those listed there are other pressures that we could face. First time students can have problems with homesickness and new responsibilities. Some of new students never washed the dishes, cleaned the room or cooked food. So, it could be very stressful to adjust to completely new lifestyle in addition to all academic requirements. Also, immigrant student may encounter pressure to overcome cultural shock that conflict
The experiences that I shared with those students presented me with great satisfaction. This influenced my decision to apply for a graduate degree in school counseling. Although, at this point in time I do not hold any experiences in school counseling I have researched ways to gain that experience. Volunteering at both public schools to shadow licensed school counselors and independent counseling centers will provide me the necessary experiences to gain hands on knowledge for the field. The ability to relate interpersonally to individuals from different cultural backgrounds is extremely important for a counselor. Being knowledgeable of a client’s culture, identity, ethnicity, race and gender play a major part in the counseling process. Possessing cultural competent is key to engaging a diverse clientele. Culture norms and rules change the way an individual interact. I understand the importance of identifying the barriers and bias in interacting with individual from different cultures. Through my previous years of education and current work experiences I obtained valuable interpersonal skills. These skills assist with communicating effectively with a diverse group of individuals. Those skills involved effective listening, problem-solving, decision-making, assertiveness, and verbal and non-verbal communication. In detail, while working as teacher, I was afforded the opportunity of advising interns on making practical
The need for higher education has prompted many students to seek further studies in international colleges outside their countries and Australia has become an academic hub for international students who mostly come from developing nations in Asia and Africa. The students, once they secure a place in this schools, they are subjected to a new environment which comes with different challenges. International students in Australia have become an integral part of the society both social and economical. However the students face a myriad of challenges before fully adopting to the new learning culture. In
However, the change from home to college can be difficult for international students (Mesidor & Sly, 2016). While some international students find it easy to adjust to the transition, others international students find it challenging to adjust to the transition (Mesidor & Sly, 2016). Studies show that international students experience many challenges as a result of language and cultural barriers, academic difficulties, financial difficulties, medical issues, housing concerns, food differences, alienation, homesickness, lack of social support system, racial discrimination, and cross-cultural loss) (Akanwa, 2015; Guzman et al., 2015; Mesidor & Sly, 2016; Sherry et al., 2010; Smith & Khawaja, 2011; Tung, 2011; Zhang & Goodson, 2010). According to Prieto-Welch (2016), international students as a group are regarded as a main minority population in campuses
International students face many different challenges when studying abroad. This is due to many factors. First, they are living in a country very far away from their own. The country they are studying at has a very different way of life than theirs. Further more, the laws in that country are much different than the laws in their own country. Due to that they face a lot of problems trying to adapt to this new culture. Me personally as an international student in the US studying at ASU, have faced three particularly difficult challenges that I was able to overcome through time. In this essay I will explain how international students can overcome tough challenges and situations.
College is a time of extreme stress due to societal and parental pressures. College students have expectations they have to live up to in order to fulfill and satisfy the needs of both their parents and society. Stress is expressed through a variety of symptoms that can be hazardous to student’s physical and mental health. With such high expectations to do well during college, students may become sleep deprived, which impairs mental capacity, but sleep deprivation is only one of a vast array of symptoms. Stress is present in all aspects of life and there are multiple causes of stress, especially, during the college period which may present itself through many symptoms, but with stress, there are also various coping methods to help students
One of the most obvious difficulties for an international student is culture shock. Culture shock is the result of moving from an environment that is familiar to one that is not. Adjusting to new food, people, environment and
Most young people believe that studying in a different country is a privilege because they are able to experience other cultures, and learn from them. However, in the United States it is not as good as they thought because International students have much more pressure being in this country, and sometimes they cannot handle it very well. Therefore, in the United States the life of an international student is very unfavorable if people compare it to the life of an American student. International students have to learn a new language to study, they cannot work while studying, and their tuition is much more expensive.
“In 2006 to 2007, according to the data compiled by the Institute of International Education, 582,984 students from all over the world were enrolled in American colleges and universities in a wide range of fields” (Carter, Paragraph 2, 2008). The United States has the highest number of students who are coming to study abroad than any other countries. Each year, the number of international students coming to the United States to obtain degrees is increasing by thousands, and home countries of these students are primarily India, China and Korea, all located in the whole different continent. But what are the motives of students who are crossing the sea to study? Their goal of studying abroad is to experience diversity and to adapt attitudes
As the widespread population of teenage international student body growth, many more promising and upstanding students came to America to develop their better selves. When the first year they come, the very different environment would be a challenge for this young generation of student who just left the protection of their parents and familiar teachers and friends. The adjustment of academic will be a fundamentally challenging for them in many different aspects.
First off, adjusting to academic factors in the freshmen year can create stress for students in a variety of ways. First of all, first-year students experience stress while trying to keep up with the new academic workloads in college, which are completely different and more challenging than the workloads in high school. To illustrate this, in Alan Schwartz’s article in the
The United States is mixing people from cultures all around the world which often called a melting pot. Also, American culture is exceptional, and might be different from international student countries in many ways. The number of international students attending institutions of higher education is on the rise in the United States. The overall number of international students in the U.S. has grown 72 percent since 2000, according to us news and world report. Also, the foreign student population rose from 547,867 in 2000 to 690, 923 in 2010. The international students from different countries such as China, India, South Korea , Japan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Moreover, China occupies the largest number and then India that 30% increase in Chinese student enrollment in the United States and 15 % of international students from India. Furthermore, the number of Saudi Arabia increased that there are 10 times more Saudi students in the U.S. today than in 2000, according to IIE. The number of students from Saudi
Stress is an ongoing dilemma that occurs in each and everyone’s life. It is a factor that is undoubtedly a part of daily living. Due to the trivial problems that occur in people’s daily lives massive amounts of stress can arise. People perceive and manage stress in many different ways. The causes and effects of stress are numerous and one’s ability to manage stress is vital in maintaining healthy living.