Blog Post #5

Throughout my Chat Cafe sessions this semester, a recurring topic of discussion among my group members are the logistics and minutiae of life in America.  How to acquire a driver's license, how to go about proving residency, and where to find the best insurance rates for international students are all topics of conversation that have been raised more than once in our weekly sessions.

I take a back seat during these discussions, but not because I don't think they're worthwhile.  On the contrary, I think it's great that group members are using one another as a resource, learning the best ways to navigate America from other international students who have been in similar situations previously.  Engaging with others hopefully not only gives them advice to help deal with their immediate challenges, but also makes them feel as though they have a network they can turn to when they come across similar problems again in the future.

The reason I don't contribute much to these conversations, though, is because I don't really have anything helpful to say.  Sure, I know how I got my driver's license, but I don't know whether or not a license is transferrable from China to here.  I've always listed my residency as the house my family lives in, which fortunately is in the United States, so doing that has never been a concern of mine.  I'm lucky enough to be on my parents' insurance, so I'm not much help in traversing those waters either.

What I mean to say by all of this is that I, and I suspect many students at UM, have little understanding of what it's like to work out the everyday details of living in a foreign country. As a campus, I feel we're vaguely aware of the issues facing international students--we understand (if not totally embrace) that language and cultural barriers exist, and that it's probably hard for students to be away from home and family for so long.  What we don't think about, however, are the small details of life that we take for granted.

By pointing this out, I don't aim to suggest that we have to understand all of these details as they apply to international students.  It's difficult enough for most people to keep up with the finer points of their own lives.  What I do feel, however, is that our community should be more aware of the fact that these problems do exist for international students (and for other residents and workers who come from abroad), and we should be sensitive to how these challenges affect their everyday lives.  An American student or professor doesn't have to learn how exactly international insurance rates work to be accommodating to and patient with people whose circumstances differ from ours.

I have no idea whether or not UM provides international students with guidance about how to deal with everyday things like insurance and driving in America--further proof of my lack of understanding of the circumstances of international students.   My group members have never mentioned being offered guidance through this at orientation or elsewhere.  Though that doesn't necessarily mean those things don't exist, that it has never come up in conversation between students in my group means resources like this aren't well-known or useful enough to be discussed between people looking for help.

It would be worthwhile, then, for UM to improve its efforts to help international students with the everyday details of their lives, so their focus here can be on their studies and activities. When members of my Chat Cafe group are unable to make it to sessions, it is invariably for one of two reasons: either they have an exam, or they have to go to the bank or the social security administration or somewhere else to sort out the issues I've mentioned above.  It seems that the need to pay attention to these issues for international students far surpasses the need to do so for American students, and therefore takes away from international students' experiences and opportunities at UM.  As a community, our campus should become more aware of and accommodating to the challenges that face our international peers, and as an institution, UM should better prepare students so these challenges don't detract from their experience at the university.