The incidence of study-related stress in international students in the initial stage of the international sojourn
1Abstract
This paper explores the incidence of stress in international students in relation to the requirements of an international Masters Programme. The data presented here were taken from a doctoral ethnographic study of the adaptation of international postgraduate students to life in the UK, involving individual interviews with thirteen students over the academic year 2003/4 as well as participant observation of the entire cohort of 150 Masters students. It is suggested that article stress related to the academic task
2is caused by academic cultural differences particularly in regard to critical evaluation and
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2 Defined as any non-UK resident (Pelletier 2004).
4linguistic differences but also due to a failure to understand or communicate at a cultural level, something which may not have been anticipated. Academic success is dependent on the assimilation of the norms of the academic culture (Blue 1993), and it is for this reason that the culture of the academic world is usually more important for international students than that of the host community (Sharples
1995), as failing to gain a qualification will result in loss of face on the part of the student and their family (Barker 1997; Hofstede 2001; Ryan and Carroll 2005). Accordingly, international students often reduce their cultural adaptation to the minimum required to fulfil their role as student (Gudykunst
1983; Kim, 1988).
There is a temporal relationship between culture shock and adjustment (Searle and Ward, 1990;
Furnham 1993; Gudykunst 1998). Culture shock is intense upon arrival in a new country, but is noted for its transitory nature, and in the models of adjustment, it is the first stage of adaptation that sojourners go through (e.g. the U-Curve model by Lysgaard 1955; the W-Curve model by Gullahorn and Gullahorn 1963). It might be expected therefore that stress would be most prominent in the initial stage of the academic sojourn and would diminish once adjustment to academic norms and conventions had been made, and once students had developed sufficient linguistic competence to meet the demands
The minority students should have a higher tendency to experience stress than their counterparts. Researchers found that stressors are common in academic settings and are mostly associated with their language, nationality and cultural backgrounds. The historical alienation and length of residency have an impact on these groups (Rienties, Beausaert, Grohnert, Niemantsverdriet, & Kommers, 2012). Male and female students experience stress differently. They frequently vary in how they experience, perceive and handle stressful life events. The possible explanation for such difference
With an increase in student mobility around the world, there are many positive outcomes related to learning a different set of education from their home country and obtaining intercultural experiences with a global mindset. On the other hand, students may struggle with different challenges, which they may have unexpected to encounter.
Studying abroad is important to me for a multitude of reasons. The most pressing of which is,
Stress can be caused in the working and even in the academic environment which is why the aim of this annotated bibliography will advise on how to manage and cope with stress in an academic environment from different authors and researchers with the conclusion of whether it is a useful advice and tool for reducing and relieving stress symptoms.
Initially, due to English is a foreign language, international students usually need spend more time in studying than local students. In fact, more or less language problems will happen in international students’ studying life. For example, some students cannot correctly use English to analyze the topic, research the information and write work paper in their group-research. Moreover, different countries have different cultures, those from countries in different education system even need to change their way in speaking, writing and thinking etc. into international models. Therefore, learning time for international students is very tight because they are facing with so much pressure. This means that, if international students use too much time doing part-time work, they cannot have enough time to do their school work which is
Every year there are around 435,000 international students enrolled in universities around the UK (UKCISA). Studying abroad for a lot of these students is a privilege, however it can be a stressful experience for various reasons. There are plenty of challenges, other than language barrier, that these students face, like major culture shock, homesickness, and financial difficulties.
When international students study for the first time at a university in the United States, the first challenge almost is study. For instance, students’ communication and writing skills, the grades in each class and so on. When the student decided to study abroad, parents place great hopes on the students. Almost international students were having a bit afraid to talk with native speaker, when they first time at the university in the United States. Also, international students could not write really like the native students writing. At the same time, students must want to get a good grade in each class, but different countries have different education system.
Maureen Andrade article, “International students face academic and social transition issues in their first year of university” (P.135), so, students will face hard times at the beginning because they came from different countries which have different traditions and believes so, they will need time to adjust with the new environment depends on the student’s personality if he or she is extroverted or introverted. Accordingly, social adjustment issues present an obstacle for the international student; they face new life style, and sometimes the social support they get is less than what the domestic students get. Language proficiency can be the biggest obstacle for the international students, sometimes they feel shy speaking to native speakers because
However, the change from home to college can be difficult for international students (Mesidor & Sly, 2016). While some international students find it easy to adjust to the transition, others international students find it challenging to adjust to the transition (Mesidor & Sly, 2016). Studies show that international students experience many challenges as a result of language and cultural barriers, academic difficulties, financial difficulties, medical issues, housing concerns, food differences, alienation, homesickness, lack of social support system, racial discrimination, and cross-cultural loss) (Akanwa, 2015; Guzman et al., 2015; Mesidor & Sly, 2016; Sherry et al., 2010; Smith & Khawaja, 2011; Tung, 2011; Zhang & Goodson, 2010). According to Prieto-Welch (2016), international students as a group are regarded as a main minority population in campuses
There were, are and will be a lot of international students who will come to the USA for their educational goals. As usual, they must go through several standardized English exams such as TOEFL, IELTS and SAT. Most of them just help students prepare for the expectations in academic workspaces, but none of them give international students a broad and deep understanding about social life in America. Rebekah Nathan, a professor of anthropology, to understand students' life in America, became a student under cover to research about college life from a student's perspectives. My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student is the book about Nathan's research. In the chapter "As Other See Us," she describes the social life of international
Stress is unavoidable, no matter the situation, location, or time; stress is always present. Stress is found in higher levels during the duration in which students attend college. It is predictably higher among college students, freshmans in particular, because of the extreme expectations set upon them by their parents and, of course, society. The need to please their parents, longing for success in life, and being able to sustain a reasonable income in the future, all of which falls into the hands of college students who are making critical decisions which may decide the outcome for a large portion of their lives. If these students end up hating their future jobs, the stress of having to go back into college to study for a new career
Transition Now that we have covered all the essential sources of stress it will be most appropriate to continue with the effects of the stress.
International students face many different challenges when studying abroad. This is due to many factors. First, they are living in a country very far away from their own. The country they are studying at has a very different way of life than theirs. Further more, the laws in that country are much different than the laws in their own country. Due to that they face a lot of problems trying to adapt to this new culture. Me personally as an international student in the US studying at ASU, have faced three particularly difficult challenges that I was able to overcome through time. In this essay I will explain how international students can overcome tough challenges and situations.
Students’ state of mental and emotional health will contribute to the way that stress manifests and presents itself, once he or she enters college. “The emerging categories related to sleep and health problems could be a manifestation of a general increasing level of stress and psychopathology” (Murphy and Archer 26). There are a great number of studies, both past and on going, of stress and college students which have mainly focused on academics, personal relationships, finance and family status. A more in depth look has revealed that students with emotional disorders or those of poor health are even more ill equipped to
Based on these findings from research done previously I feel that this study is important. Firstly, we need to understand what causes the stressors and how it affects the individual. For example, if you have an entire university with stressed students, not being productive, not performing well academically perhaps thinking of dropping out of university because of the overwhelming anxiety; it can be detrimental to the institution in terms of status and students in terms of individual realisation. Secondly, we soon have to formulate effective and efficient stress management guidelines as we