6 Struggles Of Being An International Student

Everyone knows that feeling when you come to a new place with new people and have no idea how to behave yourself. It makes you feel out of sorts and the only thing that you want is to go home or call your friends who understand you.

However, sometimes, the situations happen where you cannot go home and cannot reach your friends. Being an international student is one of such situations.

Every single student who gets the opportunity to study at a foreign university feels off their game coming to a new country and trying to find new friends. Everything is different in a new country: the way people behave, the language, the mentality, and even the holidays. A student needs to get used to all these things.

Another problem that appears is that everyone pays attention to an international student. It seems that big universities always have a big number of international students, however, every single time people get impressed that someone left their country to study at foreign university. They ask thousands of questions, and a student will hear all these questions hundreds of times from different people.

So, how does it feel to be an international student? Here are 6 struggles every international student faces.

Your Language Is So Perfect! / Your Language Is So Bad!

There are two things you will hear about your language, either it’s perfect or awful. The matter is that people are always frustrated when they hear someone from another country speak their language. And they are extremely surprised when a person speaks well but they are kind of disappointed when the language of a person is poor. In any case, they will always ask you questions concerning the language, so get ready to explain how you learned it or how you understand people if you barely know some basic phrases.

You Need to Write in a Foreign Language

This is one of the biggest struggles for students who have poor knowledge of the language. They may have thousands of brilliant ideas and they might express them perfectly in their mother tongue, but they cannot do that in the language they do not know. Many students solve this problem by ordering custom writing service.

Students who want to get a better grade may also order translation services for their papers. However, here is a problem: the professors will definitely notice that your language is poor when you speak or perform in-class activities but your term papers are written flawlessly. Thus, you may get lower grades or even have some problems with the university authorities if they suspect you of cheating.

You Need to Buy Local Food and Goods

Many international students confess that the biggest struggle which frustrates them even more that term paper writing is the lack of goods and food they’ve got used to in their country. They need to switch to local food and goods and for some students, this is the biggest challenge, especially if they come to another country for a long time and have some strong preferences in meals and supplies that they use.

You Need to Buy New Stuff

Of course, you can always take some stuff with you but when you come to another country, the weight of your luggage is limited. Thus, you take only the most important things. For students who come to another country for several months, this is a real problem, especially if the climate is different from their country. For example, Portuguese students have severe problems with Canadian climate as they are not used to the snowy and frosty weather and need to buy winter clothes that they would never need in Portugal.

You Need to Break the Stereotypes

Many think that international student carries all stereotypes of the country they came from. That’s why they ask hundreds of annoying questions concerning your country and your customs. At some point, you will become a myth buster as people will see that you are just a common person who lives a common life.

You Need to Repeat Your Name and Surname Thousands of Times

Many international students admit that one of the most annoying things is the need to repeat their names and surnames all the time as people just cannot catch it and remember it. Besides, you need to fix the pronunciation of your name or get used to the fact that your name sounds extremely strange in a foreign language.

These struggles are not so critical if we take into consideration that a student gets a unique possibility to study abroad, widen their experience, and meet new people. If you are planning to become an international student, just prepare yourself for these struggles so you will know how to deal with them and will enjoy studying abroad. So, get ready for the unforgettable experience in your educational trip!

Author’s Bio:

Kevin Nelson started his career as a research analyst and has changed his sphere of activity to writing services and content marketing. Currently, Kevin works as a part-time writer at BreezeWriting. Apart from writing, he spends a lot of time reading psychology and management literature searching for the keystones of motivation ideas. Feel free to connect with him on Twitter.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...