International Student Stress

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.

More specific challenges are encountered by international students compared to domestic students such as language

Although most people do not acknowledge that a student’s gender has an impact on academic pressure, gender is an important cause of stress, more in women. In the article “37 Causes of High School Stress” by the College Planning Group, they note many causes like grades, friends, bullying, clubs, and parents but fail to mention gender as a cause. However, gender is a significant cause of academic pressure. In the article “Academic Stress Among College Students: Comparison of American and International Students” by Ranjita Misra and Linda G. Castillo, assert that, “In general, irrespective of their American or international status, women perceived greater reactions to stressors than men.” Misra and Castillo note that women do end up having more

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

Being an international student poses a lot of challenges in blending in with the other students. Joining University changed my life from a period of being popular in my country as I had made many friends at school and in the neighborhood and I was engrossed in the popularity lifestyle. After a month in university, I felt lonely and judged, and I did not manage to make any friends. People claimed that I was proud for I was bright, had a lot of money and I was trendy which is what I learned later on. I spent my time in the library in order to end the day and the weekends. One day the guy who lives next door challenge me to attend their Christian fellowship meeting. That meeting changed my feel about believes as I got an interest in discovering religious practices. I also felt comfortable as the people were very friendly. From that day, I was able to make friends, and I even got the confidence to start interacting with people outside the Christian circle. I developed a desired to grow my spiritual journey as I learned that that was the road to interacting well with other people. This made me understand why my parents were successful in building community relationships as the religious practice allowed them to be regarded as trustworthy and gave them a place of interaction with other community members.

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

Like many of the questionnaires utilized for research in the articles used for this literature review, it was anonymous, and administered and collected during class. This form of data collection provided high turn in rates allowing researchers to have a wide study scale. According to Hicks, T., & Heastie, S., contrasting levels of stress and coping mechanisms were present in these students. It was noted that traditional college students experience more psychological stress than their nontraditional student counterparts. In addition, during the first year of college, the amount of stress experienced by students is the highest in comparison to stress in the remainder of the years. These results are especially important because it stresses the need for a strong health and wellness center within colleges and universities.

During the last few decades, the United States has leading other develop countries in attracting the highest number of international students interested in pursuing post-secondary degree. According to the Open Doors report, “The number of international students at colleges and universities in the United States increased by 7.0 percent to a record high of 623,805 in the past academic year, and by 165 percent in the last three decades” (Institute for International Education, 2008). The influx of international students in the US, seems to have a positive influence to America economy and diversity enriches the social life as well. America a capitalize country still allow its doors open, hence confirming the above claim. International students have taken advantage of the American open doors to study in US despite the many challenges lying ahead of them. Unfortunately these students travel to the US not know the psychological stress awaiting them. Psychological stress may come as a result of both academic and social experiences. Isolation, culture shock, and alienation may sometimes be stressful and can engender homesickness. On the other hand, increasing number of international students in the US is also a

With an increased demand for skilled labors, many students nowadays find themselves needing to complete some form of higher education at college to ensure their success in the workplace and their future career goals. Although freshmen students often enter college with high expectations and ambitions, many eventually drop out of college. Why does that happen? In an ever-changing and more competitive environment, the demanding expectations on college students now soar at unprecedented heights, creating stressful and unpleasant experiences for many of them as they try to keep up with all the burdens inflicted upon them. In their writings, Dr. Christine B. Whelan, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alan Schwartz, and Nisha Ramachandran explore and illustrate some of the stress-creating challenges that freshmen struggle with today. Even though many factors contribute to the huge list of problems for first-year students, many of the problems that create stress for college freshmen fall under the categories of academic factors, (what adverb to add) teachers, and personal-life conflicts.

Generalized anxiety is a problem that the United States faces nationwide. As we grow older and move into educational settings that are more taxing, anxiety becomes more prevalent. Today, college students are facing more stress than ever before. They are constantly pushed to be the best they can be, to be in the most extracurricular activities they can be in, and to attend the best schools possible. All of these goals and high expectations lead students to be harder on themselves, which makes other aspects of their life fall by the wayside, leading to high levels of stress and pressure.

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.

Stress is no new phenomenon. It’s been around as long as man and has captivated scholars and physicians alike. With the growing demand for degrees in the professional world comes the growth of the number of college students. The relationship between stress and college students has become the subject of on-going research. Several studies show that stress in college students is increasing with time and the authors of those studies are attributing this to an increased number of students. Other research seems to indicate that it isn’t necessarily the stress that is increasing but the awareness of it. Increased awareness of stress, and its unique toll on individuals, allows colleges and students to recognize

Nontraditional student numbers continue to rise on college campuses and few institutions meet the mental health needs for this special group of students (Carney-Crompton & Tan, 2002). It is the purpose of this study to examine both the stressors (i.e. triggers of the stress response) and perceived stress levels between traditional and nontraditional students.

As the world becomes increasingly globalized and interconnected, there is an imperative need for every student in this generation to be exposed and to be prepared for this rapidly changing world. Globalization sets the platform for a competitive environment, which challenges a country to increase their level of efficiency, promote innovation, and improve its overall standard of living. One of the ways that value-added learning could be incorporated in students’ learning is through the dissemination of a rich multicultural classroom, whereby local students are interacting, exchanging knowledge, and building quality relationships with international students. However, this requires foreign students to travel or migrate to another country differing from their own for the purpose of furthering their education and/or other personal reasons such as seeking a better quality of life, searching to advance their career/life opportunities, or just simply looking for a change in their environment. Although cross-cultural interaction is highly valuable, relocating to a new country and being isolated from relatives and friends can be a source of stress, anxiety, and confusion to international students, which can induce a real challenge to them for studying in another country such as the United States. This extensive qualitative research will identify sources of stress generally experienced by international college students living in the United States and their coping and adjustment

Which collects the health statistics of students from universities all around the world every second year, reported that 40.2 percent of Santa Clara University students identified that stress affected their individual academic performance during the last 12 months of their studies (Temple,2011). Temple (2011) reported a survey conducted in 2004 that assessed the overall well-being of 47,202 undergraduates nationwide. The findings were that 32.4 percent of students recognized stress as the main obstacle to their academic performance. This was said to be above the common cold, depression, death of a relative, sexual assault and eating disorders. Stress is “once considered as the nation’s number one health epidemic; prolonged stress can lead to ulcers, heart disease, stroke, major depression and to a shorter life span” (Temple, 2011).