For the international student

    As an international student attending an American college, I have always felt at a disadvantage to my peers. While I had done my best to excel in high school and had made the most of my academic career, the quality of education was unfortunately extremely low in the developing country in which I had grown up. This disparity in high school education became exceedingly clear to me when I first began classes in college: I realized that the majority of students had some form of AP credit – and some of the other international students had taken IBs (International Baccalaureate), which had never been available as an option in my country. This made them better prepared for introductory classes in college, or in some cases even allowed them to qualify for upper level classes. Initially, this left me feeling dejected and unmotivated, since I was afraid that I would never be able to catch up with my peers and that my shaky high school education would set me on unequal footing with my peers from the day I started college.

    Incidentally, my problem is not specific to international students only. I have spoken to other minority American students, and even students who have taken a gap year and have not studied for a while, who share the same feeling of being at a disadvantage. Fortunately, many colleges recognize this problem, and most will try to offer as many resources as possible for all students to have equal advantages. The key is to not feel embarrassed to take advantage of these resources. I suggest looking on your college website, speaking to administrators who are there to support you, or simply talk to your residential adviser, about what options are available to help you with your academics. Perhaps you may need to swallow some pride, but in the end, you will know that you did your very best with the resources that you had available, and that is much more comforting than failing without ever really having given it your all.

    Another discrepancy between American and international students is the number of opportunities to do research or internships while in high school. In many countries, this is not allowed before you have received your first University-level degree – whereas in America, many students attend college having done some science research, or having had an internship at a law firm. The Catch-22 is that in college, many firms recruiting college students like to see some experience on your résumé – experience that I was never able to have! This can be extremely deflating on self-esteem. My best advice is to carry on applying for internships and to never lose hope, because, although it does sound like a cliché, there will be someone who will give you that chance to get your first experience, even if it might not be your ideal job. The key to this is patience, with the intent to ultimately get something even better. And hopefully, after that, you will have the courage and motivation to seek out those internships that you are really enthusiastic about.

    My final piece of advice is geared towards the social aspects of being an international student in a foreign college. While attending college is a new experience for everyone, and we all get to enjoy the thrills of being on our own and having to take care of ourselves, the experience takes on a new meaning because international students are on foreign ground. Some of us – like me – need a 20-hour flight to get home. Parents are in different time zones. Most of us are struggling to deal with culture shock. Perhaps your college does not have that many international students, and you cannot relate to the students around you. All of these make attending college as an international student extremely difficult, and for some, the homesickness can become overwhelming. The most logical piece of advice that I can give is to immerse yourself in as many activities as possible. Get involved in that dance club you’ve been wanting to try. Find ethnic or international groups that you are interested in. Join the debate club. Volunteer in your community. I kept myself busy for the first few months of college with numerous extra-curricular activities – so much so that I didn’t leave that much time for me to feel sad and lonely. With volunteer work I knew that at least I was giving of my time to help others in need, and perhaps make someone else feel less lonely. And of course, the wonderful advantage of engaging in many activities is that I made a group of friends with interests similar to mine that I have kept even after my interest in the activity has waned, and who are there for me when the homesickness might just be becoming a little unbearable.

Karolina Brook Molecular Biology Princeton University

I found college a bit late in life-at 38 years of age. Now, looking back I can't imagine my life without the last six years spent in college. It has changed me in so many positive ways and opened up many opportunities to me that would otherwise be an unknown.

I had always been an artist and a writer but had never had the opportunity to attend college, as I was on my own from a very early age. When I met and married my husband I finally had a moment to sit down and think about what I wanted from myself, and perhaps a career. After giving birth to my little girl I really became motivated to start developing myself. So, I enrolled in a Saturday writing course at my local community college. I was terrified to even walk into the building, but I did. I felt alive, really mentally alive than I had in years and finally felt that I had a place to channel my ideas and emotions. One class led to another, then another and before I knew it I had graduated from Irvine Valley Community College and was now at a four year university. It seemed very surreal to me and I am still pinching myself with each course I finish.

Throughout the last six years I have had many ups and downs, as we all do in life. But the main constant has been school. It has been my refuge and a place for me to discover who I really am and what I am capable of. Since completing my Associates Degree I have begun to paint again and started showing my work in a few galleries locally. I also have my own fine art business and developed my own website where I sell my work online. My passion for writing came back as well and I have published two articles, finished a book of poetry and had two poems published. I also won an award for one of my poems from our English Department.

If I could advise a young person or even a returning student such as myself as to how to approach your educational career I would say this: be patient and work closely with your college advisor, they can be such a resource to you when your struggling to find your direction. And of course be present, open your mind
and listen to what your instructors say. I have made many valuable connections to teachers and professors just by listening and getting to know them. It's one of the best parts about being a student.

In closing I would just like to say that I believe everyone has something valuable to offer the world. I think that our task here on earth is to find out what those special gifts are and develop them. Education can be the catalyst that an individual needs in order to fulfill his or her dreams destiny.

Kathleen M. Settels Irvine Valley College Chapman University

Surviving the Semester

I am a single mom of three that is a full time teacher. I am also in graduate school. Until last summer, it had been 16 years since I had been a student. I was nervous, and didn’t know what to expect. Some things I had forgotten, and some things had changed since I had been gone (What was APA format anyway?). These are some of the things I have used to not only survive a semester, but to do my best.

1. ASK QUESTIONS. I am one of the most shy people in the world, but it is true: your professor is there to help you learn. If you feel like you can’t ask a question in class, or just need some one on one feedback, email your professor. Points to consider: Lists several times you are available in the first email, so the professor already has an idea of what might fit in with his or her schedule.

2. NETWORK AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WITH OTHER STUDENTS IN YOUR CLASS. I have met many fellow students just by a passing comment here and there. This has led to impromptu study groups, email buddies, and sources to give a second eye to any project you are working on.

3. MAKE YOUR ADVISOR TRULY YOUR ADVISOR. Don’t just meet with them to approve what classes you are taking. Tell them where you hope to go with your college education. Also ask for any suggestions that could expand what you are working on for any ideas that you hadn’t even thought of or considered. Advisors can also be important in guiding you towards other people/professors/programs.

4. USE THE HELP DESK PERSON AT THE LIBRARY. When I didn’t know what APA format was for writing research papers, and I didn’t know how to use the electronic library, the different people in this position were invaluable. They took time to show me how to use and find information on these topics, and other resources I could use as well.

Stacy Rhea

Masters: Curriculum and Instruction

Tennessee Technological University

My husband is currently working towards his undergrad degree at the age of 30. He attended one semester of college after graduating from high school because he wanted to become a police officer. But he went a different route after landing his first firefighting job. He absolutely loved it! From that point on he pursued every kind of technical training he could find, including earning his paramedic certification and firefighter certification. Now that he has this training, his goal is to earn his bachelor’s degree. Eventually, he wants to become a fire chief and he needs an undergrad degree in order to do this.

Whether your story is similar or not, if you are a working adult who wants to earn a degree, here are a few pointers.

1. Look for a university with an accelerated adult program. My husband’s classes are intense, but last only five weeks each. This means there is a lot of work required outside of class, but it is geared for adults who works full-time.
2. Transfer any credits you had previously. My husband’s university transferred every credit from his one semester of college over ten years ago. Even his more specific classes counted towards some of his general requirements.
3. Ask your university about life experience credit. My husband put together a portfolio of all the training he had accumulated throughout the years. The university awarded him 12 semester hours of credit towards elective classes for his degree. This is four fewer classes he’ll have to take and pay for!

Remember, schools are usually very willing to work with you. They want to see you succeed and reach your goals. It won’t be easy! It is difficult to balance a full-time job with school, but it will be worth it.

Carissa K. Goodlet Master of Educational Administration Youngstown State University

    My advice has to do with students who are married and are either in school or returning to continue their education. It is essential that your spouse has a full understanding of what to expect when returning to study for your graduate degree or continued education. Before making this decision you and your spouse must establish roles and responsibilities regarding child rearing, family income, meal obligations, and even day to day schedules.

    Likewise, it is very important to have the full moral support of your spouse for the challenges that you will face in school. You must both be fully committed to each other and fully committed to the academic goals that you have set for yourself. This will be very valuable support during the trials and tribulations of school.

Matthew Joiner Lozier

PhD, Public Health

University of Iowa

    I was 24 years old when I decided to return to school full-time. I had just married, worked full-time night shift at a mill, and was six months pregnant my first semester. Most of my friends and family urged me to wait until after the birth of my daughter to return to school, but I knew that I had waited long enough. It was now or never and I was determined to succeed in school while keeping up with the other demands in my life. That first semester was difficult and I just kept thinking, "If I can make it through this, the next one will be easier". My daughter was born 2 weeks before the end of the semester and I was back at school five days after her birth. I finished the semester with flying colors and decided to take the summer off. The next fall, my daughter was four months old and I had returned to work part-time. When I needed to study, she wanted to cry. When I needed to type a paper, she needed to be fed. Once again, I thought the next semester has got to be easier! However, by spring, she was crawling and learning to walk; now she was really into everything. I quickly discovered that it was useless to try opening a book while she was awake. I learned how to rearrange and prioritize my household chores and my studies while still spending time with her and my husband. If I was to be successful, I knew I needed to be organized and always one step ahead with each assignment. Even today, I never wait until the night before to do an assignment. My goal for each paper that is due is to have it completed one class period before the due date. As a student with a family at home, I know that at any time, someone could get sick or an emergency could happen. I try to be prepared and being prepared helps me with my confidence level when taking tests and completing assignments.

Amanda Carter Rorrer University of North Carolina

    As a returning student after thirteen years, I was excited as well as apprehensive about going back to school. Not only did I leave my home of seventeen years, but I also left my friends and family to move to a town I knew nothing about. However, as a single Mother, I knew I wanted to further my education in order to provide a quality lifestyle for myself and my daughter.

    Months before the fall semester even started, I emailed all my professors, introduced myself, and asked for the required texts and materials for each class I had registered for. By the time I arrived in Flagstaff, I had already purchased and received all my books for my fall classes. I found most of the books online at a significantly lower cost than purchasing them at the university bookstore. I also arrived a week before classes started and toured the campus, walking and exploring on my own, with my daughter in her stroller. I familiarized myself with the route to my classes from my apartment on campus. When the first day of school arrived, I felt fully prepared to tackle my first semester of classes since 1995.

    I kept a detailed calendar, noting all due dates of assignments, required readings and upcoming tests and papers. I made flash cards for my Spanish class and practiced a little bit each day. I also used the breaks in between classes to read literature and finish any written assignments. In addition, I qualified for the Federal Work Study Program and worked in the front office of Family Housing where I currently live. I was able to complete much of my homework while sitting at the front desk when I was not assisting residents. By studying between classes and during my office hours, I was able to decrease the amount of study time at home with my daughter. Despite taking 13 credit hours and working 20 hours each week, I never felt exhausted or overwhelmed due to excellent time management.

    Organization and time prioritization are both essential to succeeding in school. Academic success is possible no matter what stage of life you are in. Remember that you will make mistakes but determine to learn from them and avoid the same pitfalls in the future. Reach out to your fellow students, learn names and faces and take down phone numbers and email addresses. Put together study groups at home, the library or at a local coffee shop. Get to know your professors and take advantage of their office hours. Your teachers are there for you and want you to succeed. Talk to them, ask them questions and do not hesitate to express any frustrations or concerns you may have with the class material. Do not forget...your professors were all students at one time or may still be working on their own education.

    I am proud of my accomplishments and am grateful to friends and family for their support and suggestions. Do not let anything or anyone get in the way of your education. Just Do It!!!!

Melissa Gay Reiswig

Northern Arizona University

    As a single parent for many years during my education, it was always my priority to keep my family first. In the end it was my family who supplied the support to complete my education and share in my success. My advice would be to be very selfish with your time, plan well, don't wait until the last minute (although some of us work better under that pressure), and take failures as a learning opportunity to become successful.

__________

    As a non-traditional student I often felt intimated by the younger students that surrounded me but I soon realized that we were all there for one purpose and one purpose only and that was to learn. Realizing that they were just as nervous about embarking on a new journey in their lives help me feel more secure about the tasks that were ahead of me. I also realized that I could learn as much from the younger students in my classes as they could learn from me. Resources come in all shapes and sizes, use them!

Clara Ervin

Master of Special Education

Pittsburg State University

The Crucial Act of Support

I am an older student that made a decision to return to school full-time and even relocate to a different state. I come from a very active community life in Fort Worth. I worked with a non-profit and was on many boards and committees in the area. It was a difficult decision but one that I am thankful I made. The ability to immerse myself in the academic environment has allowed me to succeed to levels that I would never have imagined. I know it is not always possible to pursue an education full-time but the difference has been dramatic for me. It changed from ‘getting by’ to ‘savoring the experience’.

Something that is essential for success in my opinion is support and encouragement from friends and family. Although dedicated and persistent, I am not sure I would have continued on to where I am today without that support. We are all social creatures and we need each other. As my ancestors have said “we are all connected in the web of life”. Balance is necessary for success and creating the space for interaction with friends and family is essential, even during our academic endeavors. Too many students along my path have not been able to sustain themselves when there was not the support of their family or friends. Some drop out, some go back home. My hopes are that they continue their education where they are close to their support network.

Remember if there are those that you are aware that need some friendly support, let us try to help each other out and encourage each other both in action and verbally.

Marjeanna Faye Burge Master of Indigenous Nations and Peace & Conflict Studies University of Kansas

EDUCATION IS A PRIVILEGE

I am 45 years old. After homeschooling my two children through 6th grade, it's my turn to FINALLY further my education. Namely, working (one class at a time) to obtain my Masters in Education. When I was 18 and an undergraduate I was told by my parents that my great grandmother had provided for my college education and I would not be required to work. Essentially, everything was taken care of and not to worry. Six years later, I finished school and not particularly well. I really took advantage of my situation and didn't realize what a gift I had been given. With all the time I took and transferring of schools, I could have spent the same amount of money and gotten my Masters right after my undergrad! I was given the greatest opportunity of a lifetime - a free education - and took it for granted. Now, here I am, trudging along, scrounging for study time, one class at a time, paying as I go. getting 'A's, and loving every minute of it and feeling like the luckiest person alive. I am usually the oldest person in my class and the one asking the seemingly silliest questions. I probably email my professors too much and bore my friends and family with what I'm learning. But, I am LEARNING! It has taken me 20+ years to figure it out, but now I can honestly say, I am privileged and will never take my education for granted again. I can't wait to share my new found knowledge with my future students and with anyone I see making the same mistakes I've made. Think of education as a gift and never turn it down!

Sheri Lynn Robertson Masters in Education/Reading and Literacy Mississippi University for Women

Self-Creating a Major

The wonderful experience I had in college is almost entirely due to my decision to self-create my own very specific concentration. I had very hard time choosing on a major as a freshman. I wanted to something related to Architecture. Unfortunately, that is a pre-professional degree and most US colleges do not offer it. Thus, I double majored in Engineering and Art as to come up with some kind of combination that will let me purse my more architecture-oriented interests. That did not work out very well as I figured my class schedule until graduation would have been rather rigid due to the very different and too many in number core requirements for both majors.

My second year I transferred to Harvard with the hope of finding an academic field that would better suit my interests. I enrolled in History of Art and Architecture. Still, I found the classes too theoretic and more oriented towards art rather than architecture. The solution to my increasingly overwhelming problem of being unable to find a suitable major for my very specific interests was to self-create my own major in Urban Studies. That is an unusual option that very few students pursue. Out of about 5000 students, only 20 decided to purse their own field of study.

For me, self-designing a major, turned out a great success. I was able to design my own curriculum, cross-register for graduate level classes more easily, pursue a study-abroad semester related to planning, and work with graduate level professors in the field of planning. To that, I was able to write a thesis under the close supervision of a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design, which further allowed me to develop my interest and skills in planning. All this would have been very difficult (not to say impossible) if I had not been in Special Concentrations and had not received approval for all my special undertakings by the administrations, based on the fact that they were part of my self-designed concentration.

I advise students who have hard time choosing a major from their college catalogues to consider seriously the option of self-designing their own major. That may turn out to open may doors and give realization to their passion!

Irina Mladenova

Harvard

    There are a lot of good reasons for an adult to come back to school later in life. I think that being a non-traditional student in my 30's has helped me to be more focused on my educational aspirations. I have a more solid idea of what I want from life now, after having had over 10 years of life experience before coming back to school to acquire my masters degree. This 10 years of working various jobs has given me perspective concerning the types of jobs that I don't want, at least.

    I referred to my life-changing accident in a previous submission and how this accident helped focus me and galvanized my desire to better myself through furtherance of my education. My advice to other non-traditional students contemplating the thought of coming back to school and obtaining an advanced degree (or even an initial undergraduate degree) would be to go for it, because life is too short not to have some achievable goals and gain satisfaction from a job well-done!

Jonathan Todd Wigle

East Tennessee State University