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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

#21

Post by ch4s3 »

muninn_ wrote: post #17
ch4s3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 he…

Of course I read it, I literally used the term "adjustment fatigue" from the end of the article.

Yeah, the article is pretty thin, but it's an interesting topic that can promote an interesting conversation. If you don't like it, flag it and upvote something else or submit a better article.

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

#22

Post by cpburns2009 »

dropit_sphere wrote: post #18
cpburns2009 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While I did find the article interesting, I don't think it belongs here because it has nothing to due with technology.

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

#23

Post by shubhamjain »

pm90 wrote: post #7

As a former international student, the first year was incredibly lonely as I used to be a deep introvert. The article mentions some of the obstacles but perhaps one of biggest ones is being able to communicate well with Americans. I used to be incredibly anxious about buying groceries simply because I talked very fast English with a heavy accent. I could talk but not communicate ; which means that I could convey fact…

> I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said.

Funny enough, this is the second time I have stumbled across an expat noting the eccentricity of American humour. How it's hard to make friends because their jokes are .. different. I wonder wherein the difference lies.

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

#24

Post by sndean »

pm90 wrote: post #7

As a former international student, the first year was incredibly lonely as I used to be a deep introvert. The article mentions some of the obstacles but perhaps one of biggest ones is being able to communicate well with Americans. I used to be incredibly anxious about buying groceries simply because I talked very fast English with a heavy accent. I could talk but not communicate ; which means that I could convey fact…

> I could talk but not communicate; which means that I could convey facts, but I couldn't strike up a conversation with a stranger, or make a joke.

I was born here and went to a university with a large percentage of international students (the highest percentage in the US? At least at one point.). I'm extremely introverted and oddly found it easier to talk to international students than American ones. Maybe they could tell that I was as uncomfortable as they were.

> I can only imagine how hard it must be for Chinese/Korean etc. students.

In the experience of some of my friends, it took them 4+ years (they finished their undergrad and started grad school) before they started talking to non-Chinese/Korean students. Though it's possible the science/math kids aren't a representative sample.

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

#25

Post by BlackJack »

muninn_ wrote: post #14
nkrisc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there an alternative article you would recommend for this topic?

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

#26

Post by TorKlingberg »

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…

This completely invalidates the headline! Go study in Japan or anywhere, and you will see that foreign students mostly hang out with each other. Certainly their close friends will be fellow foreign students. This is mostly because local students already have an established friend group.

Besides, many are on short exchange programmes. How close friends can you really become during a 1-2 year exchange? How many of those 40% had just arrived on the last couple of months?

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

#27

Post by nkrisc »

67726e wrote: post #9
nkrisc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To play Devil's Advocate, there is no downvote option so it's hard to gauge just how much folks care about a given article.

If it isn't getting upvotes it will quickly fall off the front page. This whole thread is a bit silly.

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

#28

Post by jccalhoun »

I teach at a midwest college and I worry about my international students. Some of them do great but too many of them struggle and I don't have the skills or even the time to help them. I try to make sure that they get mixed into groups with the students from the USA in the hopes of encouraging the creation of friendships but I often feel like the university is just taking their international tuition and not doing enough to help them.

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

#29

Post by muninn_ »

ch4s3 wrote: post #21
muninn_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 he…

Of course I read it, I literally used the term "adjustment fatigue" from the end of the article. Yeah, the article is pretty thin, but it's an interesting topic that can promote an interesting conversation. If you don't like it, flag it and upvote something else or submit a better article.

I'm sorry, but none of your suggestions here are good solutions to this article problem. Speaking up and calling the article out, which is what I'm doing, is preferable.

""Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (Not all users see flag links; there's a small karma threshold.)""

The story isn't spam, or off-topic. It's bad. It's a really bad story that isn't worth reading. People are allowed to post things that are really stupid. I am allowed to point that out. Hopefully to save other people some time.

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