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40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

qz.com

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Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#11

Post by ch4s3 »

muninn_ wrote: post #5
ch4s3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.:

Why would good hackers find this article interesting? What do you find intellectually curious about it?

For me it touches on some things I experienced in college/grad school. Moreover the idea of "adjustment fatigue" is an interesting idea, and an interesting way to think about interactions you have with people from different cultural backgrounds. Do you only work with people from your exact cultural background? I don't, so I find these things interesting. Especially working in open source I often run into situations where friction is caused by cultural misunderstanding.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#13

Post by raisspen »

It is the same for almost anybody studying in a foreign country. It takes a fairly high level of self-confidence to really put yourself out there and cultural/linguistic differences can be confusing to navigate. I myself have studied in 3 foreign countries and can say that it requires a lot of effort to make local friends.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#14

Post by muninn_ »

nkrisc wrote: post #6
muninn_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would good hackers find this article interesting? What do you find intellectually curious about it?

Perhaps there are people here who have experienced this themselves? Also, the fact that it's being upvoted is evidence it's of interest to the community.

Ok sure. But instead of that experience we just have a very generalized article with some wild statistic. 40% of foreign students have no close friends? Really?

It's a garbage article that somebody is posting for up votes.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#15

Post by cpburns2009 »

muninn_ wrote: post #5
ch4s3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.:

Why would good hackers find this article interesting? What do you find intellectually curious about it?

Didn't you get the memo? Anything that's anti-Trump, pro-immigration, or shows how repressed foreigners are in the U.S. must be relevant to hackers. Granted, this is one of the better articles of this nature.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#16

Post by Bartweiss »

People should know the Quartz headline is wrong.

Follow the source link and you find that 40% have no close American friends, which is different from "friends on campus". I checked the source looking for a baseline (how many domestic students have no close friends) and discovered that it was specifically about international students making friends with Americans.

> "Nearly 40 percent of the survey respondents had no close American friends and would have liked more meaningful interaction with people born here"

This is a very different result - still important, but the corrected stat and the free-response listed in the source make clear that we're looking at a different question than simple loneliness.

edit: The HN headline has been updated, which is great news. Now if only Quartz could meet the same standards...

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#17

Post by muninn_ »

ch4s3 wrote: post #11
muninn_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would good hackers find this article interesting? What do you find intellectually curious about it?

For me it touches on some things I experienced in college/grad school. Moreover the idea of "adjustment fatigue" is an interesting idea, and an interesting way to think about interactions you have with people from different cultural backgrounds. Do you only work with people from your exact cultural background? I don't, so I find these things interesting. Especially working in open source I often run into situations w…

Sure, so how about a good article about it instead of this QZ garbage? Did you even read the article?

Chinese student is used to always having one answer but in America there are ambiguous answers.

Saudi student has to be around women and work with women. But it's different in Saudi Arabia

Really? Oh wait I forgot I have to have a absolutely mind-blowing statistic. Like you won't even believe this statistic. Click here to find out what it is!

It's like a more lengthy clickbait article targeted toward people like us. But it's just clickbait. Read for substance.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#18

Post by dropit_sphere »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #15
muninn_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would good hackers find this article interesting? What do you find intellectually curious about it?

Didn't you get the memo? Anything that's anti-Trump, pro-immigration, or shows how repressed foreigners are in the U.S. must be relevant to hackers. Granted, this is one of the better articles of this nature.

I'm about as shitlordy as it gets, and I'm glad this was on HN.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#19

Post by mraison »

muninn_ wrote: post #2

blah blah blah three stereotypical differences between america and africa, china, middle east, blah blah students have to deal with this blah blah. Why is this on HN?

Because someone submitted the article and readers upvoted it.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#20

Post by M_Grey »

Bartweiss wrote: post #16

People should know the Quartz headline is wrong. Follow the source link and you find that 40% have no close American friends, which is different from "friends on campus". I checked the source looking for a baseline (how many domestic students have no close friends) and discovered that it was specifically about international students making friends with Americans. > "Nearly 40 percent of the survey respondents had no…

Yeah, that's a totally different statement, with utterly different implications. To be honest, I'm impressed that 60% do have American friends... that's a pretty solid majority.
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