I just came back from a student exchange in Germany, and it was a weird experience for me. I am not the most introvert person, but it seemed like it was a big barrier between locals and international students. I ended up being friends with people from my own country and some Brazilians, but I could not talk to any local. My friends shared the same experience. Even my sister that came back from russia says the same.
27 comments
Some do, some don’t.
Just my personal experience but: Chinese and Indian students had large contingents on campus and tended to be fairly insular. Everyone else tended to mix pretty freely.
That was a big college, though. Most students are from somewhere else and living in a new context, so it makes it easier.
My experience at a large state school (36,000+ students between undergrad and grad) was that the majority of the Indian students didn’t really interact with non-Indian students. They tried to rope me in–I was having none of that shit.
In undergrad,sure. I had a bunch of international friends when I was in college because they drank like fish and the girls tended to be friendlier.
What I have heard about Germany is that if you didn’t grow up with them they kind of freeze you out.
As a general observation, foreign students share a certain level of comfort with discomfort and unfamiliarity. So it makes sense that the Brazillians, etc would be more buddy-buddy with you than the Germans. In your particular scenario
I remember when I was in high school, I was volunteering for a 25-year reunion (late 2000’s) and one of their exchange students from Germany showed up to be a part of the party. Obviously that’s an anecdote
I’m from a small college town. Many of us are disappointed so many international students seem to stick to themselves. We’d love to welcome them and show them a good time.
I was reading on another sub and someone said Germans make their friends very early on in life and it can be tough to break into those group.
In the US some international students tend to self isolate. But Americans are very friendly in general and welcoming
Yea! I have many good foreign friends! I even dated an Ethiopian girl!
Some do, some don’t. You can’t generalize the almost 1 million international students studying in the US. Alot of people are saying Indian and Chinese international students don’t mix with locals but I did not experience this at my college.
Asian students don’t but others do in my experience. And the Asian thing isn’t just limited to the US, even in Europe Chinese students hung out with each other
Sometimes, but when there’s a large enough number of students from a particular country or region, they tend to stick together rather than socializing with the locals.
The Mexican students at my uni mostly stuck together, and sat in their own part of the classrooms, did projects together, etc. The Arabs all stuck together.
Other foreigners, like many of those from European or African countries, didn’t have a bunch of people from their own countries to stick with and speak their language, so they were forced to socialize with the locals more.
So I guess here, it’s really up to the international students to determine whether they associate with the locals or not, and not the other way around, at least in my experience.
Yes but no, like in my experience, people mix to each other but at the end internationals trust more in international students specially if they speak the same language
I went to college with a large Chinese student population.
In general, they did tend to hang out with each other although its understandable since theyre young and far from home. I’d say definitely not unfriendly and willing to hang out with us locals.
Also a fair amount of them had relatives or family friends living in California that would rent them rooms in their house as sort of a favor for their relatives back in China
It depends, largely on what people came for.
Some exchange students seem to want “studied abroad” on their resumes but don’t have much actual interest in meeting locals. (Or, in extreme cases, studying much.) Someone often pulled strings to get them there, rather than it being a personal goal of theirs to go.
So, they hang out with each other, mainly. (Having a large group you don’t have to leave is part of it, too. It forms a bubble.)
Others seem to view it as an extended vacation. (That’s one of the opposite extremes.)
I’ve been an exchange student, and also met a lot of exchange students here. Whether they socialize with locals depends a lot on whether the students are interested in doing it in the first place.
The rest is on the locals, of course, but lots of Americans are welcoming- the sort of “freeze out” you’re describing in Germany is considered exceptional in the US.
It depends. Most the time people are going to interact w/ those they feel most comfortable w/. If there’s language and social barriers then interactions are harder. Also depends on the program too. I did a program in Ireland, but all the students were American so we just hung out together. I did a program in Thailand and hung out w/ a lot of different people because the program was very mixed (about 70% Thai, 20% other, 10% American).
I — native-born American — lived in international student dorms and studied IR. What I heard from international students was that they felt local students were NOT welcoming, and that the international students socialized with other international students, including their own compatriots more than Americans.
Given how insular/xenophobic Americans are, I don’t question this.
I’m from New Zealand and did a high school exchange to Idaho, USA, in 2009/2010 for a year. I found the Americans there to be insanely nice and welcoming! And I don’t think it’s just because I spoke English as a first language and am white, because there were four of us at the high school that year (the others were from Spain, Thailand, and Vietnam) and we all found friend groups and participated in high school traditions.
My family in NZ also hosted some American students over the years (usually for shorter periods) and we all got along well. In fact, one came back to NZ on her honeymoon recently and hit me up wanting to catch up!
The Chinese and Indian students often keep to themselves. But virtually all other international students mixed with the study body as a whole.
In my college days, international students were generally friendly, if you were. I made friends with a lot of Asian exchange students, including some from China. They were all friendly and most wanted to learn about Americans. Most lived in the dorms on campus.
The European exchange students were different, probably because they were nearly indistinguishable from white Americans. Most of them lived off campus and were not much different from other white students. I had friends from Germany, England and Russia, but mostly only because we had classes together. In contrast, I’d meet Asian exchange students in the Student Union and other places around campus besides class.
There were a few black Africans and they were more like the European students than the Asians.
As for Indians, I’m sure there were some, but I was never friendly enough with any to know if they were Americans or exchange students.
Yes. My best friend from college is from Vietnam. And I was friends with plenty of other people from abroad.
In my high school the international students were always invited to various social events. They were fun and interesting because they were different. Not to mention a few (but not all) were attractive, so that probably didn’t hurt?
My high school had French, Dutch, German, Danish, and Brazilian exchange students last year or at least those are the ones I know of. We openly welcomed them and there was no barrier between them and us. The biggest barrier was language because some people couldn’t understand their accents, they didn’t know certain words, and they were more familiar with British spelling and terms rather than American ones, and even then at most it caused minor confusion not an actual barrier.
Some groups of international students tend to stick to themselves. Others frequently socialize with the American students. It just depends on how well the cultures mesh with each other and the individual.
Weird, I live in Germany and met my current girlfriend while she was here through ERASMUS, and she had a very different experience/made lots of German friends in her uni. Ik what you mean though, Germans make friends and keep them for life typically, so maybe she got lucky. That being said to answer your question when I lived in the USA we had an exchange student from Germany and she was pretty well immersed in the student life where I lived
Oh yeah! When I was in college I had a solid group of friends from the Middle East. It’s pretty normal.
The Asian kids didnt, they stuck to their own groups and didn’t seem to make any effort at all to socialize outside of them.
The European kids definitely did though. My suitemate one semester was a Russian guy, and we partied hard, and I met several other Russian and exchange students through him. I hope he’s doing ok, I havnt really thought about him since that whole fiasco over there.