Student Office Should Be An Inclusive And Welcoming Community Essay

Living and studying in another country has never been easy for everyone, and it happens to me too. There are many things for me to adapt to, such as language, culture, food, lifestyle…

A sudden change in one’s surroundings can result in culture shock. Culture shock refers to the anxiety and surprise a person feels when he or she is discontented with an unfamiliar setting. The majority of practices or customs are different from what a person is used to. One may experience withdrawal, homesickness, or a desire for old friends. For example, when a person goes to live in a different place with unfamiliar surroundings, they may experience culture shock. Sometimes it is the result of losing their identity. In the article “The Phases of Culture Shock”, Pamela J. Brink and Judith Saunders describe four phases of culture shock. They are: Honeymoon Phase, Disenchantment Phase, Beginning Resolution Phase, and Effective

Moving to a different country is a great adventure that can bring pleasure and distress being a new immigrant. Many would have difficulty dealing with the culture shock that goes along with moving into a foreign country. This is unavoidable because of the unknown surroundings, unfamiliar customs and different behavioral formalities and structure. The four stages of Culture Shock may stop it sooner once they notice the patters. The four stages of Culture Shock are: honeymoon, negotiation, depression and adjustment. The first stage of culture shock is often positive, during which immagrants become infatuated with the language, people and food in their new surroundings. The follow stage negotiation is probably the hardest stage, after sometime in the new enviroment you start to feel the cultural differences. The culture may seem confusing or frustrating. You may blame your frustrations on the new culture and

Culture shock is the feelings of alienation, hostility, heightened ethnocentrism, sense of loss, depression and/or self doubt that may result from immersion in a new culture.

After fifteen months of living in Canada we found that we were suffering from culture shock and moved back to England in 2009. Culture shock was studied closely by a man named Kalervo Oberg. Trying to give a better understanding of this phenomenon he stated that, “culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse” (). It is known that when suffering from culture shock you can feel “disorientation, alienation, depression, and loneliness” (textbook). For my family and I, we found that we were not fitting in the way we expected to, my father could not find employment, my mother did not have a work permit so she also could not get a job, we were running out of money, and felt like we did not have any other choice but to move back home. Our decision to move back to England seems to be very common choice as Oberg also stated, “all the difficulties and problems are

Pederson (7) explains that there are stages of culture shock, which he identifies as the honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment, and adaptation. In the honeymoon phase, a person is likely to get excited about being in a new place, meeting new people, tasting new foods, and acquiring new habits. However, as time passes by, they get into a phase of negotiation, where the differences between the culture one is used to and the one they find themselves in start to become apparent. Feelings of anxiety, anger, and frustrations start to take shape as unfavorable events perceived as strange come in the way of the person 's life, especially if a person does not feel accepted in the new culture (Mukherjee 273). Loneliness may set in, and the urge to go back to the familiar culture strongly comes into play. However, as time goes by, adjustment sets in, usually within six to twelve months, and one gets accustomed to the culture and also comes up with a routine. By this phase, one knows what is expected of them, and life once again becomes ‘normal.’

Students from diverse social/cultural backgrounds who are pursuing degrees in the US universities are subjected to, socially and academically, a worrisome climate. It is critical for educators to question, evaluate and to examine cultural diversity outcomes in higher education campuses. According to my role as the writer of this paper, I intended to typify the different stages that any international student could be exposed to, and how they interact with target culture, coupled with the outcomes of such adjustment trails. In the social context, international students often experience a phase of homesickness and then a period of cultural shock. For instance, instructors in higher education classrooms apply various teaching styles or educational methods which are originally different than the international students ' scholastic values, beliefs, and practices. One of the key elements in my research paper is the attention it paid to the cultural/social clashes that may occur to international students while they are attempting to socialize within the host culture.

One of the most obvious difficulties for an international student is culture shock. Culture shock is the result of moving from an environment that is familiar to one that is not. Adjusting to new food, people, environment and

Finally the last stage is referred as the “acceptance stage,” according to one foreign student. After some weeks or months we are noticing improvement within ourselves after have wrestling with the emotional stages. The final stage of cultural shock doesn’t mean that the new cultures and environments are completely understood, it signifies realization that complete understanding isn’t necessary to function and thrive in new surroundings. During this stage, travelers have the familiarity and are able to draw together the resources they need to feel at ease.

The emotional struggles that international students have are homesickness and culture shock. According to Ivan Sekyonda from Uganda, he appreciates the school faculties for helping him with going through homesickness and culture shock (Sewall, p. 127). Students from different countries happen to have trouble adapting to American culture that is more liberal. This inability of getting along with American culture due to culture difference causes homesickness which makes students want to go back home. Many international students seem to not enjoy their first year in America for such problems.

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

Studying abroad, which has become a common phenomenon, can be a fun and meaningful experience. Many university students are interested in studying abroad because it gives them an opportunity to explore different cultures and broaden their horizons. As Mark Sherry, Peter Thomas and Wing Hong Chui argue in “International Students: a Vulnerable Student Population,” the goals that students pursue international study are often to acquire different ways of learning and to improve cross-cultural understanding, which helps them gain self-confidence as well as maturity (33). This experience turns out to be beneficial to those who study abroad. Nevertheless, when students are surrounded by a wholly new environment, many problems that hinder their

I became used to regularly and only speaking English, and imitating the attitudes of the people I worked and went to school with. Although I remained culturally connected, I also took on the American culture that I was learning to become a part of. This included food, etiquette, and how I spoke and dressed. This experience, as well as what I am learning in sociology, revealed a lot about the importance of culture, and the obvious ways we feel different when put into a culture we don’t recognize. When defining culture shock in class, as feeling disoriented or out place when being placed in an unfamiliar culture, I finally found the exact term to define the odd feeling I had when being scared of the culture I was facing for the first time. While culture is made up of “socially transmitted” customs, knowledge, and traditions (as well as behavior and ethics/moral ideals), it can quite literally define who you are. It makes up your entire identity, and that is why being in situations where people around you do not share the same traditions and values, it feels out of place and sometimes borderline

After reading Varner and Beamer’s explanation of culture shock I was able to analyze my intercultural experience and can see that I experienced all four stages, euphoria, disillusionment, adjustment and integration. I believe if I would have left Chicago in the disillusionment stage I would have said my experience was negative, but since I stayed well after my adjustment into my new culture I now look back on this time as positive. At the time of my move I didn’t give thought to different cultures, I thought everyone would be like me, I know realize there are so many more aspects to culture, I don’t know if I could have been totally prepared for this experience. I do know in the future I will no expect things to be the same and be a little

By definition, according to Edward Tylor, culture is “A complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." When a person is taken out of one culture and placed into another culture, the person may experience culture shock. While culture shock can be classified as a feeling of disorientation by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, there is more to it. Acculturation is a change in culture which results from the continued firsthand experience between two well-defined cultures (Nwadoria and McAdoo, 1996 ). Culture shock isn't just a feeling but rather a series of stages with different emotions. In total, there are four stages of culture shock; beginning with the honeymoon stage, then the rejection stages, moving onto the regression stage and then finally to the stage of acceptance.