When Nihar Sahasrabudhe was a freshman, he faced many of the challenges students typically do during transition from high school to college.
From discovering newfound independence, to finding a new group of friends, Sahasrabudhe was ready to take on them all. But, he quickly found these hurdles were more challenging to clear because he had attended high school in a different country.
"It has always been a dream of mine to go to school in the United States," said Sahasrabudhe, who is now a senior majoring in finance and international affairs. "But when I finally got here, I felt like I was in over my head, it was a really hard adjustment."
Sahasrabudhe, who was born in Mumbai, India, came the University of Georgia for its finance program, a decision that was heightened by the allure of generous financial assistance and his extended family in the greater Atlanta area.
Throughout his first week, Sahasrabudhe struggled to find his place at UGA – that was until he came across a flyer advertising International Coffee Hour, plastered on the front, an event hosted by a department called International Student Life (ISL).
"After I found ISL, my experience at UGA completely changed," said Sahasrabudhe. "I was able to connect with so many people, both international and domestic, and really found my home away from home."
International Student Life is a department dedicated providing various resources to help international students get accustomed to life at UGA, as well as "internationalizing" UGA's campus through various events and activities.
Sahasrabudhe said that ISL serves as the "cultural exchange bridge" between the small international students and the rest of UGA, something that becomes increasingly important as more international students attend college at UGA.
One main ways ISL does this is through cultural exchange events, such as International Coffee Hour and cultural showcase nights. The most recent cultural night was put on by the Hispanic Student Association – Noche Latina Historias.
Noche Latina Historias happens ever October in celebration of Latinx Heritage Month. Like other cultural events, the night was full of colorful performances, traditional food and various displays showing off Hispanic Heritage.
For Sahasrabudhe, it's events like these that make it all worth it.
"No matter where I go after this," said Sahasrabudhe. "I will always consider ISL one of my many homes; there, I found so many friends so different then me, and in the end they became my family."
Even though Sahasrabudhe met many other international students through ISL, international students only comprise 6 percent of the University of Georgia’s overall student population. According to a ranking by College Factual, UGA ranks 131st out of 1300 colleges and universities for popularity with international students.
There has been a steady increase in both the amount of overall students and international student enrolled since 2011. Justin Jeffery, the Director of International Student Life, accredited this steady upward trend to UGA’s growing reputation as a global institution.
There are several factors that attract international students to attend university in the United States. For undergraduate students in particular, Jeffery said data suggests that a main factors is having a family member or friend who attended UGA in the past; another is the academics.
“International students, as the research shows, are prestige seekers,” said Jeffery. “An international student is going to want to go to the school where they can maximize their return.”
About 75 percent of international students are graduate students. Jeffery said that the majority of graduate students are recruited specifically by academic programs.
There are international students at UGA from over 109 countries, with the top five being China, South Korea, India, Iran and Canada, respectively. Jeffery said, there are several factors behind these statistics that are related to the educational situation in those countries.
“Internationally, factors that push students to study in the United States are due to a capacity issue at home,” Jeffery said. “There’s not enough seats at home or enough prestigious universities to hold all of the potential students, which happens to be the case for the top three nations represented at UGA.”
He says that China, South Korea and India have a booming middle class and youth population, and due to competition, several of these students seek education internationally.
Jeffery said that ISL does a lot of the initial legwork for reaching out to these students, by promoting programming and international student orientation (an optional, but highly encouraged, opportunity for students).
Within UGA's ISL department, there are many student task forces focused on improving the international student experience at UGA. One of them is the International Student Advisory Board (ISAB), a group that works to make the needs of international students known to faculty and promotes international student visibility.
Three international University of Georgia students, Katja Songkeng, a sports management PhD student, Yahan Ma, a sophomore in the process of applying to the Terry College of Business and Sally Shi, a junior majoring in mathematics, are members of the ISAB. The three of them explained that ISL has made very different impressions on Songkeng, Ma and Shi.
Ma has found tremendous help from her advisors and the programs that the organization offers, while Shi views ISL as her extracurricular activity and has found several friends through it and spends a lot of time atISL because she wants to help out with leadership in the community.
However, for Songkeng, ISL hasn't had as much of an impact on her university experience, but like Shi she is motivated to be a leader and positively impact the experiences of other international students by changing the way international students are perceived and interacted with.
Songkeng said that people view her as a representative of her country more so than an individual personality and that it affects her interactions with domestic students.
“You feel more like an object than a person,” said Songkeng. “I don’t want to be the German chick. I want to be me.”
Shi, Ma and Songkeng said there are three main stereotypes they have encountered as international students and addressed their falsities, along with the aspects of truth that contribute to their circulation. Here they are:
Stereotype 1: “All International students do is study.”
Songkeng said that she understands where this stereotype comes from, but dislike that that people view her as a representative of her country more than an individual. Ma gets frustrated by the thought of domestic students perceiving her and her peers as nerds.
“People think Chinese people wear big, heavy glasses, read everyday and practice exams, and that they don’t have contact with others,” Ma said. “Most of us love to be friends and don’t just want to learn by ourselves.”
Ma admits that many international students tend to study a lot, but it's due of added pressure of losing their visas if they don’t pass their classes or maintain a full course load.
Shi, who wears big glasses, finds herself in a bind because she falls into the Asian stereotype of loving math. However, she said her desire to study math comes from her genuine love for the concepts.
“I care about the reasons why, and I see a lot of students picking some major or classes just trying to pass it,” said Shi. “I pick harder classes than I need to because I am interested in them.”
Stereotype 2: "All international students are rich."
With an average annual cost of attendance around $40,000, many people assume that international students have to be wealthy to attend UGA.
As a completely self-supporting student, Songkeng is irritated by this stereotype. She is able to afford studying abroad due to the paid assistantship she was offered as a PhD student through the university.
“Not everyone is rich or has their parents to support them,” Songkeng said. “That is a very common misconception.”
Although Sonkeng was received financial compensation, assistantships are limited. This, alongside the restrictions on the type of employment they can hold as well as the hours they can work, can increase financial strain for international students.
Stereotype 3: "International students only hang out with each other."
Around the UGA’s campus, the Shi, Ma and Songkeng said that international students are often seen hanging out in groups with other international students.
“Integration goes both ways," Songkeng said. "I often blame us international students for choosing the convenient route."
Songkeng and Shi both agreed they felt like it sends exclusive messages to domestic students when international students choose to speak in their native language.
“If a group of Chinese students stick together all they speak is Chinese, it is kind of isolating,” Shi said.
Shi, Ma and Songkeng value ISAB and other ISL groups because of the wealth of tools and events they provide for international students. Songkeng and Shi said they actively use these to seek out relationships with people of other cultural backgrounds then them.
“That’s my fight, I really want people to get out of their comfort zones,” Songkeng said.
One of the main ways she does this is by playing pick-up basketball each night after 9 p.m. According to her, the Ramsey Student Center is the most diverse place on campus. And the best part? They don’t talk about diversity. They just ball.
“That is why I believe in sports and that’s why I’m studying sports," Songkeng said. "I know a ton of Chinese guys and a ton of Indian guys but do we talk about where they’re from? No.”
Collectively, Songkeng, Ma and Shi view ISL as a form of outreach to student groups that do not normally intersect rather than a safe haven where they can relate to people with similar backgrounds. They to encourage international and domestic students alike to bond over who they are, not just where they're from.