Finding Connection is Key to Feeling at Home as an International Student

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

This year, 106 international students from 35 coun­tries selected UMHB to call their “home away from home.” For many of them, life as a teenage interna­tional student includes facing many challenges like lan­guage barriers, social and cultural differences, religious differences and academic dissimilarities. One of the things many of them suffer from is feeling isolated – miles away from family, friends and all things familiar.

“One day, the Chapel speaker was talking about something and it just hit me and I started crying be­cause I was missing my mom,” Kanishka said.

After the service, Jason Palmer, dean of UMHB Spiritual Life and university chaplain, came to comfort Kanishka. “I just connected. He was like a big brother, a dad-figure,” she said.

It was that connection that proved to be a turning point in Kanishka’s experience at UMHB. For her en­tire freshman year, she had been living in Austin with relatives and taking an Uber back and forth to campus every day. Not only was it a massive $160 daily dent in her budget, but living so far from campus made it difficult to connect and make friends. For her sopho­more year, Kanishka had an opportunity to move just minutes away from campus, and she quickly found herself meeting more people, making new friends, and joining in activities, including Missions Emphasis Week, the Psychology Club and Bridges International, a social group that promotes connections between international and domestic students. Kanishka helped organize the annual multicultural program that year, as well as her junior year. She got to share a little of her culture when she cooked Indian food, dressed in traditional Indian attire, performed a Bollywood-style dance and offered henna hand drawings. Kanishka is now in her last semester as a psychology major preparing to graduate this May. Until then, you can find her smiling face behind the counter at the cam­pus Chick-fil-A where she works, but what she’s most excited about this year is serving as the international student representative for the Student Government Association (SGA). Her platform was “helping interna­tional students build connections on campus.”

“I know that there’s a gap. A lot of our international students feel very isolated,” she said. “So, hopefully, we can find ways to help them connect.”

BREAKING OUT OF COMFORT ZONES

Dr. Elizabeth Tanaka, director of UMHB Interna­tional Student Services, agrees that international stu­dents often take a while to break out of their comfort zones. Some students are better at plugging in, like Kanishka, who has thrived since becoming active on campus. Others, take a little longer.

“International students tend to socialize only with those from their home country,” she said. “It’s un­derstandable because that is their comfort zone, and so much here is new. But this tends to isolate small groups of students who become dependent on each other rather than becoming part of UMHB as a whole.”

The international students who take an active role in becoming a member of the campus family have experienced great success, Tanaka says.

“They are happy and busy because they get invited to do many activities, even just going to HEB with American friends,” she said. “They also tend to be academically successful because they are at ease with hearing English at a fast pace, and they have friends to study with.”

Tanaka and her team are always trying to find ways to help international students get involved. There are many reasons they choose not to. Sometimes, they are shy about making a mistake in English and “appearing foolish,” she said. Another reason is because in their free time, instead of joining into activities on cam­pus, they are Facetiming and Zooming their friends back home rather than trying to make new friends here. Cultural differences also come into play, Tanaka added, because many international students are not as comfortable taking initiative as their American coun­terparts.

“Someone has always told them what to do, when to be there, etc. and they are just fairly passive about anything that is not a requirement,” she said. During her international student orientations, she stresses to students that they will have a much more fulfilling experience, both socially and academically, if they will just “GO TO SOMETHING!” she stresses. “Partici­pate! Get a couple of people from your country to go with you. Even if you sit on the sidelines and do noth­ing for a while, it will get easier and easier to interact.”

She also stresses to give American students a chance to get to know them and build a friendship.

“Say ‘hello’ to someone from your class that you see outside of class. Say ‘hello’ to your professor! Go to a sporting event; everyone is there for the same purpose and no one will ask you to do anything other than watch and applaud.”

WHERE TO START

Tanaka pointed out some of the ways UMHB encourages international students to get plugged in, including the International Orientation Day her office offers each semester before classes begin. The Baptist Student Ministry (BSM) hosts events, such as Texas Night, for international students to familiarize themselves with "all things Texas." The BSM also has an international committee that hosts events such as learning to bake a cake and game night. Bridges International publicizes regular meetings for interna­tional and American students to build friendships, and the library has hosted events specially for international students.

“We will continue to offer as much as possible in hopes of catching the elusive students who are looking for a way to plug in and take advantage of activities,” she said.

One interesting fact she has noticed is that a single student (who is the only one from his or her home country) usually participates more often and becomes comfortable on campus much more quickly than those who have a bigger “comfort zone” group to hang out.

“The single students tend to live on campus lon­ger too because they don’t have a group to rent an (off-campus) apartment with, and I think that encour­ages more participation as well,” she said.

OUT OF HER BUBBLE

Tran Ho Bao “Cherry” Le of Vietnam started classes at UMHB from her laptop, sitting inside a small room she rented from a family friend in Dallas. It was fall 2020 when COVID-19 was peaking and many students opted to take classes online. She missed out on touring campus. There was no Cru Camp and no Welcome Week.

“Technically, I didn’t know anything about UMHB,” said the bubbly nursing major who is now a junior. “That was not what I imagined of college. Not at all.”

Before college, Cherry had spent the last two years in an American high school. Her American “dad,” Rodney Marshall, who had briefly attended UMHB, was the one who convinced her to come to UMHB.

Because she didn’t experience college the way she envisioned that first year, she was considering transfer­ring, but her American parents convinced her to give it another try “in person.” Cherry applied for a sum­mer job as a student worker with the UMHB Center for Academic Excellence, and got hired. She moved into Burt Hall, enrolled in some summer classes and went to work, helping with Cru Camp. She finally got to experience all the things she missed that first year!

“I didn’t get a chance to do my Cru Camp, so that’s why I was there!” she said.

When she started classes in the fall, a friend who served in SGA suggested Cherry run for the interna­tional representative position, so she did, and just like Kanishka, Cherry got involved in the multicultural fes­tival, as well. This year, as a junior, she helped design sets for Stunt Night and is involved in Bridges Inter­national. During one of her Christmas breaks, Cherry joined other students from around the country for the Vision Conference in Washington, D.C., and this past semester attended a fall retreat to Burnet with Bridges International. She’s also been involved with the college group at Taylor's Valley Baptist Church in Temple.

Getting involved was not easy for Cherry, but she is happy she pushed herself “out of her bubble.”

“My freshman year, I will say I definitely felt like an outsider all the time,” she said. But finding activities changed that for her, and she hopes to see more inter­national students “breaking out of their bubbles” as well.

Just because some international students may not have many (or even anyone else) from their country attending UMHB, they should not let that hinder them from living their best life here, Cherry said. And getting plugged in and meeting new people is one of the best ways to do that.

“I realized that friends do not define us. I do not see them as ‘American’ or ‘international’ friends. I just see them as ‘friends,’” Cherry explained. “You can just go out there and make friends with people – any of them! If you’re nice to them, they will be nice back.”

Looking over the last two years on campus, Cherry is thankful she found the courage to open her mind to new experiences, and hopes to inspire other interna­tional students to do the same.

“I feel like UMHB is my family now and I would love to have other international students feel and experience the same things that I have.”