Information for International Students
Life changes can be both exciting and difficult, especially when one is far from home and one’s natural support systems. Counseling and Psychological Services acknowledges these challenges and provides support and assistance to many international students.
What are some common concerns for international students?
Everyone goes through an adaptation process when they move into a new culture. These are some things that make this process even more difficult:
- Having to use a foreign language
- Uncertainty about how to interact with people in authority
- Not sure how to make new friends
- Not having a clear idea of how to date people from different cultures
- Not being able to express yourself in your usual way
- Different food and eating customs
- Different religious practices
- Differences in educational systems
- Having people get impatient with you when you don’t understand things
- Having to deal with prejudiced people
These difficulties and others may lead to confusion and other uncomfortable feelings such as feeling:
- Lonely
- Homesick
- Helpless
- Overwhelemd
- Unsafe
- Unsure of yourself
- Less competent
- Like you don't belong
- Angry or frustrated
- Afraid of the unknown and unfamiliar
- Confused about which values to live by
- Unsure of whether to stay in the U.S.A. or go back home
- Unsure how to raise and relate to your children in the new culture
Added to all of these worries, you are also faced with adjusting to university life. You may face challenges regarding making career choices, academic pressures, studying effectively, and developing and maintaining relationships with others.
Counseling and Psychological Services is available to help students handle these challenges.
What are counselors and counseling like?
It is often difficult for students to discuss personal problems with a stranger, but Counseling Services has licensed professionals who are open and knowledgeable. They also strive to educate themselves about issues that many international students face. Counseling provides students with an opportunity to discuss the problems they are facing with someone who will listen without judging them. Counselors then help the student assess the situation, review the options available, and may provide information that the student needs to resolve the problem.
Everything discussed with a counselor is strictly confidential and will not be provided to anyone. Even the fact that one is being seen by Counseling and Psychological Services is private and not shared with anyone, including a student’s parents, home government, or other offices on campus, without the student’s written permission. The only exceptions to this confidentiality occur when it is clear that a person’s life is in danger, a child is in danger of being harmed, or when information is required by a court of law within the United States.