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

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

#131

Post by wizardforhire »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #112
wizardforhire wrote: post #61

Fwiw 10 years ago I was organizing weekly dance parties in a college town. 80% of our attendance was foreign students. Nightly I would have kids from all over the world profusiosly thanking me. The bulk of the complements were in one way another "thank you so much for putting this on I feel like I'm home. I don't get American culture but I get this." 10 years later I still have people coming up to me randomly thankin…

Why do you say that the greek system was hostile to foreign students, more so than the regular social experience of college?

Well I'm speaking from experience and this in no way will apply across all schools or groups. As such I know of some great organizations which have great missions and members and do great work. That said at this particular university which was largely greek, the largest fraternities and sororities were the largest offenders of indoctrinated and systemic racism which had subsequently seeped into the school culture and administration as a whole. That school has had numerous national scandals as a direct result. The scandals are just the instances that get reported and they're just the tip of the iceberg. Daily life for the kids I knew was fraught with fear and apprehension. It's also one of the reasons why I think when we were doing our parties we had so many foreign kids come out and respond the way they did.

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

#132

Post by jonathankoren »

slantyyz wrote: post #109
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reverse ( non East Asian moving to an East Asian country) is not the same. East Asian countries were never a nation of immigrants.

America is a nation of immigrants, but isn't the USA supposed to be a "melting pot"? Contrast that to Canada, where the term we used was "mosaic" (when I was growing up in the 70s & 80s).

"Salad bowl" was a trendy metaphor in the 90s for the United States, which is much more in line with "mosaic." Personally I find mosaic to be a more term.

The problem with "melting pot" was that in melting everything becomes indistinct and bland, where as in a salad bowl, the pieces remain distinct but work together as a whole to make enhance the entire salad.

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

#133

Post by jonathankoren »

Spooky23 wrote: post #104
beeftime wrote: post #31

Before I got into software development I worked for a South Korean company that helped high-level students get into American and Canadian universities. The single biggest source of stress for myself and the other westerners working there is that the administration's (and the parents'!) only goal was to get these kids into a school, and absolutely no thought was given to acclimating them to a different culture or teac…

It's more than that -- parents explicitly don't want their children to absorb American culture.

Not absorb American culture seems like a gross mischaracterization. It's not so much not absorbing (which is a losing battle unless you cloister yourself off), as much as not forgetting or not passing on parts of your own culture.

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

#134

Post by slantyyz »

jonathankoren wrote: post #132
slantyyz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a nation of immigrants, but isn't the USA supposed to be a "melting pot"? Contrast that to Canada, where the term we used was "mosaic" (when I was growing up in the 70s & 80s).

"Salad bowl" was a trendy metaphor in the 90s for the United States, which is much more in line with "mosaic." Personally I find mosaic to be a more term. The problem with "melting pot" was that in melting everything becomes indistinct and bland, where as in a salad bowl, the pieces remain distinct but work together as a whole to make enhance the entire salad.

But is assimilation (i.e., the melting pot) as it relates language, culture and values still expected of immigrants in the US to the same degree as it used to be?

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

#135

Post by sxates »

navs wrote: post #70
bookbinder wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said. Whoah. You just blew my mind. I didn't realize things like jokes and sarcasm could be a barrier for someone who technically understands otherwise understands English.

From the other side of the spectrum, while not American but being raised American, I have a sense of humor that's strongly sarcastic. It alienates me from non-native english speakers in my workplace.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBztjzDr0fM

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

#136

Post by vacri »

edblarney wrote: post #84
habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

It's by far more than just language. Cultural norms, customs, and the fact that on many campuses, there are quite a number of foreigners, making it more difficult for the social scene to absorb. US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture' as far as people outside the Anglosphere is concerned.

> US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture'

While indeed similar, a story on that: a friend at a high-end consulting firm here in Australia told of a US colleague who was over for a 6-month secondment. At the end of the visit, he apparently said "I wish I had known at the start that the people making fun of me probably liked me, and the people being perfectly polite probably didn't..."

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

#137

Post by VLM »

ashwinaj wrote: post #69

What does close friends mean? A lot of relationships in the US are based on "activity" partners[0]. Someone to go out with, sharing a same hobby, passions etc. Close friends in other countries means a lot more than just activity partners. I had the same experience in grad school, I only had "activity" partners, than what I would call close friendships with Americans. It always felt "distant". It's sadly true even tod…

Yes the most American website ever is meetup.com go search the meetups in your area and at least 95% if not 100% are what you DO at work or when not at work, and almost none exist to BE someone or to hang out with an identity. The only identity groups will be like "something area singles group". I find it typically American that all americans aspire while not wanting to appear aspirational, so lots of americans want to start a business, but none would ever be caught dead at a meetup called "we want to start our businesses" or "we want to lose weight", americans can have "gym buddies" to hang out with cool bros but never "weight loss buddies" because that sounds very aspirational. Perhaps Americans are too pessimistic to be caught sounding that optimistic, I donno. Its a pity, you'd think meetup would be a good place for "I wanna learn (some technology)" but thats as unamerican as possible because its identifying as wanting to learn something as opposed to physically doing something, and even worse its aspirational.

Also it never fails to amuse me that they'll be about one hiking group per half million people in a metro area and they all claim they're the "real group" the "fun group" the only "active group". Something to do with Dunbar's number you just can't have 1000 americans work together they have to make smaller tribes and pretend the other tribes don't exist. All a bunch of foolishness. Sometimes I think meetup.com is all an elaborate stunt by some grad student gathering anthropological data about Dunbars number.

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

#138

Post by jonathankoren »

010a wrote: post #89

I can't generalize for every school, or everyone at every school. I attended an engineering program at one of the top 5 schools by total international student population. Honestly, international students are cliquey. Many of them that I talk to openly admit to cheating on their english proficiency exams universities require you to take before you can attend. Meshing with local students is nearly impossible if you don…

Seems like kind of a leap to declare an article about cultural gaps and "adjustment fatigue" to be "anti-American."

Not everything is political, dude.

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

#139

Post by stevenkovar »

habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

Similarly, I made a good number of friends who were international students by playing intramural soccer. I suppose you could say soccer is a common language.

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

#140

Post by toomanybeersies »

hubert123 wrote: post #75
habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

Language is not the reason however why these foreign students wouldnt spend energy to learn the language better before studying abroad.

I've met several people who have moved here to New Zealand specifically to learn better English. It's immensely difficult to learn another language when you have nobody to talk to. Reading and writing proficiency are easy, but the spoken component is just so difficult.
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