Globalization is an unavoidable trend in today’s age. People nowadays have more and more chances to interact with the whole world. Students study abroad to gain more advanced knowledge. Travelers travel all of the world to enrich their experiences. And even a small company starts to consider how to deal with international trade. More interactions happening mean more information exchanges. More information exchanges bring the result that more knowledge and wisdom are shared. As more and more knowledge and wisdom are shared, humans are walking forward together. However, what cannot be ignored is that during the same time that people interact all over the world, cultural differences are shown up. As an international student, I want to discuss the effect of cultural differences on international students in this paper based on my experiences and research. So what is the effect of culture differences? Is that positive for international students? Or does that have a negative impact for international students? Why it is important for people?
Some of people hold the opinion that the effect of cultural differences is same with culture shock—“the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, a move between social environments, or simply travel to another type of life” (Macionis and Linda Gerber 54). This idea is totally fine. Because most of the time, cultural differences bring people, like international students, lots of inconvenience. Let’s prove this from two aspects: daily life and study.
From daily life to say, international students like me cannot easily understand what people are talking about so that they cannot join in the daily conversation t...
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...bt that it is important and necessary for people to know the effect of cultural differences more deeply in order to answer these questions. Only when people know more about these effects, could they find out efficient ways to help international students to adapt their daily life and study life successfully. Also only when people know more about these effects, they could identify international students’ special values and personalities.
Works Cited
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Macionis, John, and Linda Gerber. "Chapter 3 - Culture." Sociology. 7th edition ed. Toronto, ON: Pearson Canada Inc., 2010. 54-55. Print
Justin Matos Reasoning and Analysis Paper When you come from a different country do you have trouble communicating with others? Is it hard to adapt to the new culture or stay within your own culture? Around the world, many people are rewarded for been direct and independent. Been able to take care of yourself and work well with others who are not in your culture can help you achieve great things.
Brink, Pamela J. and Judith Saunders, “The Phases of Culture Shock.” Kiniry and Rose 332-333. Print.
American students have been such a question mark for the international students, their way of living and thinking is way different than any international student and this is noticeable. Students from all over the world notice a difficulty in dealing with the Americans and mentally understand them. Therefore, Rebekah Nathan argues that in her article “As Other See Us” and discusses the differences between the American and the international students. Moreover, she uses different evidence based on students from different backgrounds and cultures. Nathan goes over opinions and stories that happens with the international students in the US and what they think about these situation, which they considers weird in the eyes of the international students.
Sociocultural adaptation can be understood as a process of social learning and is associated with the length of time, the existing cultural distance and the amount of contact with members of the host culture. These could make it more or less difficult to adapt to a new culture (Zlobina, Paez 2004). Foreigners who leave their culture of origin and are immersed in a new culture with norms, values and customs that they do not recognize as their own, have to make an effort to adapt. The above process of adaptation or adjustment involves three basic aspects: 1) Psychological adaptation, including acceptance and the degree of satisfaction in the new cultural environment. 2) Cultural learning, which is the acquisition of social skills that enable the sojourner to adapt the host culture, and establish links with members of the host culture and, finally, 3) Learning behavior appropriate for the resolution of social tasks. Sociocultural adaptation involves social and cultural learning. The three dimensions are linked, but have some independence between them (Moghaddam, Taylor , Wright, 1993). Ward ( 2004) showed that international students, who were culturally adapted, adopted elements of both cultures and tried to achieve a bicultural identity. It is important to note that any sojourner has gone through a series of grieving process after migration due to the loss of two important elements such as: firstly, the extended family and friends, who constitute the soc...
One of the first and most common problems most, if not all international students face when they first arrive in the UK for study is culture shock. culture shock is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary(2014) as the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone when they are suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes. When students first move to the UK they observe and experience several things for the first time and it tends to overwhelm them. New international students often find themselves feeling powerless and unimportant which often forces them into self-isolation(Bailey, 2005). The culture shock also tends to result in the students being unable to make friends in their new community because they are unsure of what is customary and regarded in good light (Bailey, 2005).
college gives the chance to meet meet new people from different country and different culture. A student have the chance make a friend from from another culture by taking the same class and studying together. By going to college the students will build knowledge not just about the subject that they are taking, but also they will build knowledge about the different culture which they will know by involving with the international students in study groups or project groups. I remember when I had to do informative speech in one of my classes. I chose my culture to be the topic of the speech. I informed my classmates about different facts about my culture. My classmates could not stop asking me question about my culture, my environment, and my country. My speech helped the student to understand my culture better and know more about my country. Going to college improve the student 's social communication. When I first went to college I couldn’t speak with American student because I had a thought that my language will not help me understand them or be a friend with one of them. However, throughout the study groups I did make an American friends. Going to college has helped me to get involved with the community
Murray, Jane Lothian, Linden, Rick and Kendall, Diane. (2011). SOCIOLOGY IN OUR TIMES, Fifth Canadian Edition by Nelson Education Limited, Published by Thomson Wadsworth, USA.
Schaefer, R.T. (2009). Sociology: a brief introduction, 8th edition. New York, New York, USA: McGraw-Hill.
Pedersen, Paul. The Five Stages of Culture Shock: Critical Incidents Around the World. Westport, Connectcut: Greenwood Press, 1995.
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 in also has a very different way of life than theirs. Also the laws in foreign 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 in 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.
(1997) Sociology: Introductory Readings, Revised ed. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press. Hebding, D.E. and Leonard, G. (1996) Introduction to sociology: A text with readings, 5th ed. McGraw Hill Inc. (worldwide).
For newly arrived international students who are in their late adolescence developmental stage, the sources of acculturative stress often include academic pressures, language difficulties, feelings of inferiority, difficulties in adjusting to new food or cultural values, lack of support, perceived discrimination, and homesickness (Andrade, 2006). In addition, international students may experience little acceptance, tolerance, and understanding of their cultural practices by members of the host country, and in some cases, racial discrimination (Poyrazli & Lopez, 2007). It is also possible that international students themselves may be intolerant or discriminatory towards other international students or members of the host culture. These difficulties can contribute to international students’ loneliness, alienation, mistrust, powerlessness, and depression. Although members (e.g., new college students) of the host culture may be affected by such difficulties, the combination of acculturation stressors has been found to weigh more heavily on international students who have limited access to resources (Poyrazli & Lopez, 2007). Specifically, when experiencing acculturative stress, they may
Hadis, Benjamin. "Why Are They Better Students when They Come Back? Determinants of Academic Focusing Gains in the Study Abroad Experience." Frontiers Journal. Dickinson 11 (2005): 57-70. Print.
Firstly, university students will meet others from a wide variety of backgrounds and broaden their understanding of other cultures. Students who reside in halls will most likely encounter an international student; in 2013/14 they
I always want to be an international student because I believe that learning in different surroundings will offer me a chance to explore the world. In order to become one, I have been preparing myself for this upcoming challenge. Long years of studying and paying most of my attention to school work made me wonder whether it is worthwhile to spend so much time on textbooks and became curious about what it is like to study in another country. In 2011, I seized the opportunity provided by my senior high school and became an exchange student in the U.S. . I didn’t fit in perfectly in the beginning, but throughout my exchange year, I had learned to adapt m...