40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

https://qz.com/31376/40-of-foreign-students-in-the-us-have-no-close-friends-on-campus-the-culture-shock-of-loneliness/

by pmcpinto • 9 years ago

416 269 9 years ago

b6• 9 years ago

It takes a lot of courage to put yourself in a strange environment, away from familiar comforts and friends and family, into the care of strangers, to learn about a million faults they have, and then learn to love them anyway, and, most importantly, to really allow the experience to change you.

pm90• 9 years ago

As a former international student, the first year was incredibly lonely as I used to be a deep introvert. The article mentions some of the obstacles but perhaps one of biggest ones is being able to communicate well with Americans. I used to be incredibly anxious about buying groceries simply because I talked very fast English with a heavy accent. I could talk but not communicate; which means that I could convey facts, but I couldn't strike up a conversation with a stranger, or make a joke. I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said. And this is despite me having pretty good knowledge of English; I can only imagine how hard it must be for Chinese/Korean etc. students.

The best thing that happened to me was to get an internship in a company where my team was composed mostly of Americans. I learned how to talk slower and more importantly, slowly understood sarcasm as well. Perhaps most Americans don't realize just how much of a shared culture is needed for immigrants to understand before they can communicate effectively.

beachstartup• 9 years ago

in my experience the split has to do more with east/west cultures than nationalities. americans are friendly and like to joke around, be sarcastic, and not take things too seriously unless you are dealing with personal safety or a lot of money. if you aren't like that, you're going to have a really hard time.

for example, in the first couple of years, a spanish (from spain) person is going to do a lot better than a russian.

emeraldd• 9 years ago

Reading this, it just clicked where the "brash american cowboy" stereo type comes from. I've wondered about that for the longest time. We tend to play loosey goosey until there's a "reason" to get serious.

shubhamjain• 9 years ago

I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said.

Funny enough, this is the second time I have stumbled across an expat noting the eccentricity of American humour. How it's hard to make friends because their jokes are .. different. I wonder wherein the difference lies.

baby• 9 years ago

Come to France and everyone will insult you and your mother, it's quite a change.

sndean• 9 years ago

I could talk but not communicate; which means that I could convey facts, but I couldn't strike up a conversation with a stranger, or make a joke.

I was born here and went to a university with a large percentage of international students (the highest percentage in the US? At least at one point.). I'm extremely introverted and oddly found it easier to talk to international students than American ones. Maybe they could tell that I was as uncomfortable as they were.

I can only imagine how hard it must be for Chinese/Korean etc. students.

In the experience of some of my friends, it took them 4+ years (they finished their undergrad and started grad school) before they started talking to non-Chinese/Korean students. Though it's possible the science/math kids aren't a representative sample.

anonyguy1969• 9 years ago

The political correctness statement is so spot on. I still struggle with that till now. People just don't want to talk about certain issues here it seems; a stark contrast to europeans

sqrt• 9 years ago

They didn't mention political correctness, though...?

rpearl3• 9 years ago

Give an example.

monksy2• 9 years ago

Ignore it. It's only important in the professional setting (where theres a personal risk).

Otherwise, in social situations, people who are sensitive towards it are holding others hostage to it. You're only a hostage if you allow it.

monksy2• 9 years ago

Perhaps most Americans don't realize just how much of a shared culture is needed for immigrants to understand before they can communicate effectively.

I would also like to add to that: The fact that we have a culture. (That's often underplayed to seem "fair" to other cultures)

chillacy4• 9 years ago

Culture to us is like water for fish, if you never travel and see something different, you could live and die without knowing anything else.

bookbinder2• 9 years ago

I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said.

Whoah. You just blew my mind. I didn't realize things like jokes and sarcasm could be a barrier for someone who technically understands otherwise understands English.

navs• 9 years ago

From the other side of the spectrum, while not American but being raised American, I have a sense of humor that's strongly sarcastic. It alienates me from non-native english speakers in my workplace.

havetocharge• 9 years ago

I genuinely can't tell if you are being sarcastic.

shriek• 9 years ago

This is spot on to me as well, apart from the internship. It didn't help that I don't socialize more. Public speaking was a nightmare which I thought I was speaking well but complete blank stare from the audience just added to my anxiety. To be honest, social media (reddit etc) has slowly helped me understand the culture and I like to think that I can atleast decently communicate now.

chrisper3• 9 years ago

When I came to the US as an international student, I was basically invited to some event by the local church that they hold for all new international students. It was like a booster board to make new friends. It was incredibly helpful. Though I eventually stopped going since I am not religious and just make my own friends elsewhere over time.

sauronlord• 9 years ago

So you move far away AND prefer the company of yourself... what's the problem here?

finid• 9 years ago

If you're an introvert or very shy, it doesn't matter how far or close you're from home - it's very difficult to make friends.

wallflower• 9 years ago

See also "When a Chinese PhD Student Meets a German Supervisor " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769385

raisspen• 9 years ago

It is the same for almost anybody studying in a foreign country. It takes a fairly high level of self-confidence to really put yourself out there and cultural/linguistic differences can be confusing to navigate. I myself have studied in 3 foreign countries and can say that it requires a lot of effort to make local friends.

Bartweiss• 9 years ago

People should know the Quartz headline is wrong.

Follow the source link and you find that 40% have no close American friends, which is different from "friends on campus". I checked the source looking for a baseline (how many domestic students have no close friends) and discovered that it was specifically about international students making friends with Americans.

"Nearly 40 percent of the survey respondents had no close American friends and would have liked more meaningful interaction with people born here"

This is a very different result - still important, but the corrected stat and the free-response listed in the source make clear that we're looking at a different question than simple loneliness.

edit: The HN headline has been updated, which is great news. Now if only Quartz could meet the same standards...

M_Grey2• 9 years ago

Yeah, that's a totally different statement, with utterly different implications. To be honest, I'm impressed that 60% do have American friends... that's a pretty solid majority.

VLM3• 9 years ago

The data is highly distorted by a large fraction of foreign students being Canadians. "Hey guys lets watch hockey tonight" and a fondness for maple syrup in the cafeteria isn't a major cultural road bump, compared to say a dude fresh out of Saudi Arabia who barely speaks English.

Also the study carefully avoids discussing the stats for the Americans so there's no useful comparison (intentionally?). Is that the same ratio? I wouldn't be shocked. I took some weekend/night classes and those folks are samurai with lives outside class and barely enough time for assignments and homework and existing social relationships, so in those classes I would not be surprised to see 90%-plus of students having no student friends at all. When I was finishing up my degree a couple decades ago I had a wife and kids and a house and a full time job and zero interest in going to a kegger with some kids almost young enough to be my own kids, and after a full days work and a four hour lab and having to go to work early the next morning there's no way I could stay awake for a kegger anyway.

I also took some specialty classes at a tech college and their students have nothing at all to do with each other socially as near as I can tell. A nineteen year old kid living in moms basement, a 40 year old retired disabled army vet living in a house, and a 30 year old single mom working three jobs and living in an apartment walk into a bar together sounds like the start of a joke but it was pretty accurate description of tech school. Socializing with classmates seems to be a purely 18-22 residential/dorm/greek thing. And thats still a lot of kids... but gotta be realistic, its maybe only 3/4 of total students, maybe even less.

I am so old that I know that inserting a 21 year old legal drinking age in the middle of the prime college socializing years of 18-22 must have quite an effect. That must be very weird for foreign kids from countries without drinking age hangups. What I have had a beer with my pizza for two years now back home what do you mean that I go to jail? What I am here in your country illegally and everyone thinks thats great and its illegal to kick me out but I want un cerveza after class and they act like I am felon? Crazy americans... crazy americans.

TorKlingberg2• 9 years ago

This completely invalidates the headline! Go study in Japan or anywhere, and you will see that foreign students mostly hang out with each other. Certainly their close friends will be fellow foreign students. This is mostly because local students already have an established friend group.

Besides, many are on short exchange programmes. How close friends can you really become during a 1-2 year exchange? How many of those 40% had just arrived on the last couple of months?

Symbiote2• 9 years ago

This is mostly because local students already have an established friend group.

I don't think that's correct, at least outside small countries. I certainly didn't find it unusual when all my school friends went to different universities. Two others from my school were at the same place I was, but they weren't friends of mine.

My university was in London, and had a very large proportion of foreign students. Many of the Chinese students hung out together. The Europeans (including the British) and other westerners mixed together, divided more by interests and age than nationality. Some groups (South Asians, Japanese) mixed with some British students with similar ancestry.

I ran a social club for a couple of years. The students on short exchanges, like ERASMUS, seemed to make much more effort to join in with clubs, teams and societies, since they were only there for a few months.

senthil_rajasek4• 9 years ago

"Go study in Japan or anywhere, and you will see that foreign students mostly hang out with each other."

That is not a right comparison. The U.S is not Japan.

sctb• 9 years ago

Thanks, we've updated the submission title to clarify.

tcbawo2• 9 years ago

In general, I've found that people will not invest as much in a friendship given an upfront, known shelf life (duration of grad school, year abroad, etc.) unless they are bound by a similar constraint. How often does chatting with someone on a plane lead to a life-long friendship?

carussell• 9 years ago

This is true for a lot more than friendships. It's less rational than I think you try to give it credit for in your last sentence.

How long were you at your last job? Let's say you spent 3 years and 2 months there. Let's make an assumption and say that your time there was a positive one for your colleagues, and that you left with no animosity and—specifically—no animosity about the timing or circumstances of your departure.

Now let's suppose, though, that you walked in on your first day knowing that you would end up spending 3 years and 2 months there, down to the date of your departure, and during introductions you let your colleagues (including management) know about the limit on your time there. Let's call this version of you You'.

The way this would play out is that You' could make the exact same moves as you in every situation, and yet will be given much fewer opportunities and find much smaller success, despite there being no difference between you and You', save for this small discrepancy. As a result, your colleagues and the company will end up getting much less value from You' than they get from you.

People are bad at maximizing the resources available to them.

floatboth• 9 years ago

also "close friends". not everyone has close friends at all

jccalhoun• 9 years ago

I teach at a midwest college and I worry about my international students. Some of them do great but too many of them struggle and I don't have the skills or even the time to help them. I try to make sure that they get mixed into groups with the students from the USA in the hopes of encouraging the creation of friendships but I often feel like the university is just taking their international tuition and not doing enough to help them.

erikig• 9 years ago

Thank you. As a former international student, I really appreciated the efforts that were made by our faculty to help us integrate. Many of the friends I made, both from the US and from other countries were from the informal events and clubs that the faculty organized outside of class hours.

jimmies2• 9 years ago

As a foreign student, thank you. Among close American friends, some of them were acquired through my class projects. Although it might not be the most effective channel, it definitely makes a difference.

I think the best the school could do is to make the students stay in dorms with shared rooms when they come to study. Roommates, in my anecdotal experience, are among the best channels to acquire friends. If the school doesn't have the policy in the first place, then perhaps there is little that anyone could do to help, if the students don't make it a priority.

snvzz• 9 years ago

40% of foreign students in the US have no close friends on campus

Missing important data for contrast: How many non-foreign have no close friends on campus.

TillE• 9 years ago

Exactly. Close friends? I'd guess it's at least 20-25%.

College can be a weird place. Personally I had a lot of people I hung out with for a semester or two, but nobody I liked enough to truly be friends with.

beeftime3• 9 years ago

Before I got into software development I worked for a South Korean company that helped high-level students get into American and Canadian universities. The single biggest source of stress for myself and the other westerners working there is that the administration's (and the parents'!) only goal was to get these kids into a school, and absolutely no thought was given to acclimating them to a different culture or teaching them the skills they would need to thrive in a very different educational system and social climate. We (the foreign teachers) would try to sneak cultural lessons in and hold extra classes about how to join campus organizations and social clubs, and we'd always get in trouble with the management because "it wasn't important". There's a very real sense in East Asia that once you get into an American university that you'll become successful, but some of the brightest kids are coming back to their home countries with a 2.7GPA, a memory of crushing loneliness, and many tens of thousands of dollars wasted. It's a solvable problem that no one is really interested in even examining.

mtw• 9 years ago

I'd say many expat europeans or americans in Asia (Shangai, south korea) don't make any effort in making close native friends. Many of them prefer to hang out with people from their own country, or other western people. Only a few think about "acclimating to a different culture or learn new skills they would need to thrive in a very different educational system and social climate".

beeftime3• 9 years ago

That's very true, but you're talking about a totally different thing here. There's a big difference between an (ostensibly) self-reliant adult looking for work/adventure/cheap booze and a kid fresh out of high school tossed into a totally different world and expected to "become successful" with little to no guidance.

hocuspocus• 9 years ago

I lived 5 years in South Korea, and well:

* It was incredibly easy to meet other foreigners, and not necessarily westerners, far from that actually. I now have genuine friends on every continent.

* Since you're on the same boat, you can relate. Given how unique the work and life environment can be, it's nice to be able to talk with people who'll understand you.

* Making native friends isn't easy, even when you're making real efforts.

I don't have an unlimited amount of energy I can put into socializing, so after a short while I stopped trying too hard. Even the Korean friends I made before my move weren't too interested in hanging out once I lived there.

hkmurakami4• 9 years ago

The term expat is almost synonymous with "not integrating with native residents" to me. Otherwise imo they would be immigrants!

seanmcdirmid• 9 years ago

As an American in Beijing, I didn't know many other Americans. True, I hanged out with foreigners (westerners, non-Chinese Asians, and Taiwanese who were basically considered foreigners), but I also hanged out with Chinese, heck, my whole team at work was Chinese with only me as the foreigner.

When I was studying Chinese in PKU, it was similar. Part of the problem was that the university wasn't really setup to mix foreigners with Chinese students: we were studying at PKU, but using very different facilities. Of course, if you made an effort, you made friends, some of which I have today (incidentally, almost all of them went abroad to the USA as PKU undergrads tend to do).

Spooky23• 9 years ago

It's more than that -- parents explicitly don't want their children to absorb American culture.

VLM3• 9 years ago

Interestingly as a parent I think that's fairly common, certainly more than majority, both foreign and domestic.

jonathankoren5• 9 years ago

Not absorb American culture seems like a gross mischaracterization. It's not so much not absorbing (which is a losing battle unless you cloister yourself off), as much as not forgetting or not passing on parts of your own culture.

sumedh• 9 years ago

parents explicitly don't want their children to absorb American culture

As my Indian parents say, these white people just drink alcohol and have sex all day.

notadoc• 9 years ago

I assume much of this is due to language or cultural barriers, even if it's mostly perceived and not a legitimate barrier. Not surprising that most foreign students congregate with one another, but they're missing out on part of the experience of studying abroad surely. This goes both ways BTW, US students studying abroad in many countries experience the same thing as well.

jusob• 9 years ago

I spent a year in US as a foreign student. From my previous experiences (internships in UK and Germany), I knew it would be difficult to make friends with "locals". In UK, I was in a dorm during the summer with a private room, shared bathroom and kitchen. Most people were eating in their room. I finally made friend with one british guy as he was cooking. He told me later he didn't think he would make friends during the short summer session, even less with a foreigner. His girlfriend owned a pub, I had a great summer!

In the US, I didn't realize it would be even more difficult because 90% of the students in MS are foreigners in the college I attended. Anyway, I decided that the best way to make American friends was to be with them all day long. I joined a fraternity on campus.

This was not easy. Most fraternities never had a foreign student, except the one I was accepted in. Because my english was not great, I focused all my time on 1 fraternity to increase my chances of being accepted. I was the only foreigner in all fraternities this week.

It was not always easy, but it was worth it. I joined while doing my MS, all my brothers where freshmen. We had very different work load and about 4-year difference. But I did make friends with all of them. I spent Christmas with one of my friend's family (I didn't leave the US for winter break). It was a great experience.

I'm rather an introvert. But when you travel in a foreign country, you have to talk to strangers all the time. Expectations are also lower when you don't master the language fully. You have to be very direct and explicit in your communications.

Symbiote2• 9 years ago

In UK, I was in a dorm during the summer with a private room, shared bathroom and kitchen.

That's a shame. The kitchens were the most social spaces at my university. I think taking hot food into rooms was forbidden -- in any case, few did so.

I remember giving my views on plans for new dorms at my university, which were planned to use small kitchens shared between 4-6 students. I, and many others, objected -- they were replacing buildings with large kitchens, shared with 20 or more students. Much better for meeting people and making friends. It opened after I'd graduated, but judging by the pictures, the kitchens are for about 12-14 people, possibly more :-)

mkaziz• 9 years ago

I was a foreign student, and I ended up assimilating by becoming friends with first gen Americans (children of immigrants). Once I got used to a handful of cultural norms (took about a year or two), it became easy to interact with Americans directly.

Today my closest friends are the ones I made in college.

dbg31415• 9 years ago

When I was in college, circa 20 years ago, I studied Korean. (I had a friend growing up who was Korean, and he taught me swear words and such, and I figured if I ever got the chance to study I would.)

Anyway, I was 6 months into a language course that was heavily populated by US-born Korean students who were taking it for the easy A... I needed a tutor to keep up so I reached out to the teacher who introduced me to a few Korean exchange students.

They lived in their own apartment, not the dorms. They cooked their own food, didn't go to the cafeterias. Fast forward a bit, my fraternity had a charity event and I invited a few of them... was a casual invite, said something like, "Hey we're doing this thing, tell your friends!"

A week later at the charity concert like 60 Korean exchange students showed up. Every single one of them was dressed in a tux or evening gown. Totally classed up the place. Had no idea there were that many exchange students until that night.

And they were all really appreciative of the invite. Basically said no one had invited them to any events on campus before... I met some new folks, knew just enough Korean at that point to ingratiate myself and get invited out drinking after the event... and quickly realized I was playing checkers at a chess tournament when it came to drinking with Koreans. Ha.

Made some friends out of the deal, but it wouldn't have happened without everyone going outside of their comfort zone a bit.

e40• 9 years ago

I went to UC Berkeley in the 80's and I found it a sterile and unfriendly environment. Maybe it was me. I had one friend from all the classes I took. One. I had a lot friends from working in the CS department.

I think the reason was the hyper-competitiveness between students. It doesn't foster any sort of cooperation.

frozenport• 9 years ago

Right now everybody cheats, so there is a lot more cooperation - but typically only in your racial group.

systems• 9 years ago

so a solid majority of 60% gets to have a close US friend sounds impressive (too good to be true actually)

how does this compare to foreign students in Canada, Germany, UAE, UK

lumberjack• 9 years ago

It's unbelievable impressive from my experience. I've only travelled and studied within Europe but I would say, foreign students pretty much never have close native friends. But then again in the US there is no language barrier.

jasonkostempski2• 9 years ago

What percent of Americans have close friends of any nationality on campus?

aakriti12154• 9 years ago

^ repost.

jasonkostempski2• 9 years ago

What does that mean? Did someone else ask the same thing? If so, no one has time to read every single comment before commenting, sorry.

wizardforhire2• 9 years ago

Fwiw 10 years ago I was organizing weekly dance parties in a college town. 80% of our attendance was foreign students. Nightly I would have kids from all over the world profusiosly thanking me. The bulk of the complements were in one way another "thank you so much for putting this on I feel like I'm home. I don't get American culture but I get this." 10 years later I still have people coming up to me randomly thanking me saying they've stuck around because of friends they made.

In my limited experience I feel there's a real cultural mis-match with kids from other countries coming here to study. Most of the kids I met were from huge cities and the shock of being in a small college town was in many was too much for them. That and the greek system was overtly hostile to them.

On side a note it's humorous what many kids take back with them from their time in America. It's worth doing an image search of "American party" to see what I mean.

mediocrejoker• 9 years ago

Why do you say that the greek system was hostile to foreign students, more so than the regular social experience of college?

wizardforhire2• 9 years ago

Well I'm speaking from experience and this in no way will apply across all schools or groups. As such I know of some great organizations which have great missions and members and do great work. That said at this particular university which was largely greek, the largest fraternities and sororities were the largest offenders of indoctrinated and systemic racism which had subsequently seeped into the school culture and administration as a whole. That school has had numerous national scandals as a direct result. The scandals are just the instances that get reported and they're just the tip of the iceberg. Daily life for the kids I knew was fraught with fear and apprehension. It's also one of the reasons why I think when we were doing our parties we had so many foreign kids come out and respond the way they did.

duckehlabs• 9 years ago

When I was in school, international students had a week prior to orientation with their own orientation. They formed friend groups from this orientation, so it's not too surprising that they would stick to those friend groups rather than then branching out to the people they have less in common with the following weeks.

iak8god• 9 years ago

Yep. Through the orientation they are also introduced to organizations on campus that provide outings and other social activities specifically just for these people who happen to have nothing much in common besides being international students. It's kind of a weird idea, honestly: oh you're from Belarus, you're from Indonesia, and you're from Peru? Here are a bunch of activities you can all participate in for free or cheap, that are ostensibly mostly about exposing you to the local culture & attractions, but without having to interact with local students or other local people.

Further, students from some countries have the option of a critical mass of their compatriots to hang out with, which I'm sure is a tempting comfort to rely on. >30% and >15% of international students are from China and India respectively: http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/United-States/Inte...

dagw• 9 years ago

I wonder if they tried to normalise how different people and different cultures define what is meant by "close friends". I mean I'd probably say that I've made maybe 4 close friends in my entire life (5 if you count my wife), half of which I've lost contact with, without ever really feeling I'm lacking friends, acquaintances and people to hang out with.

ashwinaj• 9 years ago

What does close friends mean? A lot of relationships in the US are based on "activity" partners[0]. Someone to go out with, sharing a same hobby, passions etc. Close friends in other countries means a lot more than just activity partners.

I had the same experience in grad school, I only had "activity" partners, than what I would call close friendships with Americans. It always felt "distant". It's sadly true even today.

[0] I couldn't find the relevant article that discussed about this, specifically in the American context.

VLM3• 9 years ago

Yes the most American website ever is meetup.com go search the meetups in your area and at least 95% if not 100% are what you DO at work or when not at work, and almost none exist to BE someone or to hang out with an identity. The only identity groups will be like "something area singles group". I find it typically American that all americans aspire while not wanting to appear aspirational, so lots of americans want to start a business, but none would ever be caught dead at a meetup called "we want to start our businesses" or "we want to lose weight", americans can have "gym buddies" to hang out with cool bros but never "weight loss buddies" because that sounds very aspirational. Perhaps Americans are too pessimistic to be caught sounding that optimistic, I donno. Its a pity, you'd think meetup would be a good place for "I wanna learn (some technology)" but thats as unamerican as possible because its identifying as wanting to learn something as opposed to physically doing something, and even worse its aspirational.

Also it never fails to amuse me that they'll be about one hiking group per half million people in a metro area and they all claim they're the "real group" the "fun group" the only "active group". Something to do with Dunbar's number you just can't have 1000 americans work together they have to make smaller tribes and pretend the other tribes don't exist. All a bunch of foolishness. Sometimes I think meetup.com is all an elaborate stunt by some grad student gathering anthropological data about Dunbars number.

jorgec• 9 years ago

My experience in the U in my generation, started with 60 students and ended only 6 from different levels/years.

habosa2• 9 years ago

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency:

   Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace
   Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed)
   Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification)
   Level 4: Can do all of the above passively, being able to pick up valuable information just by overhearing conversation without focused metal effort
   Level 5: Ability to do all of the above in a noisy and hectic situation (like a party, sporting event, etc)

It's really, really hard to make good friends without getting to Level 4 or 5. I work with many people for whom English is a second language. At work they don't miss a beat and are great teammates. But it can fall apart in a social setting. Once there are 5 overlapping streams of conversation stuffed full of cultural references these coworkers of mine very frequently lose track of the conversation and become quieter and quieter over time.

I bet you'd find that this 40% number is much different for students studying abroad in a country where their native language is common. My US friends who moved to the UK or Australia had no problem making friends.

hubert123• 9 years ago

Language is not the reason however why these foreign students wouldnt spend energy to learn the language better before studying abroad.

oblio2• 9 years ago

It's one thing to learn the language, it's an entirely different thing to be an pleasant presence, especially in a noisy environment.

dandr01d• 9 years ago

You should spend the energy to write proper English sentences before posting online. It's easier to learn by doing.

lorenzhs• 9 years ago

There's only so much you can learn from books and TV shows. One might have Shakespeare's vocabulary and mastered the intricacies of grammar, but there's no substitute for prolonged interaction with native speakers in achieving (near-)native proficiency in a language. Studying abroad is one of, if not the easiest way to get there.

toomanybeersies• 9 years ago

I've met several people who have moved here to New Zealand specifically to learn better English. It's immensely difficult to learn another language when you have nobody to talk to. Reading and writing proficiency are easy, but the spoken component is just so difficult.

TheOneTrueKyle• 9 years ago

Yeah you can learn English all you want, but that isn't going to help you understand Snoop Dogg lyrics.

int_19h5• 9 years ago

No amount of studying outside of the native environment will give you the skill level necessary to easily maintain social conversations once you're in it.

English is not my native language. However, I went to a school that had a specific emphasis on English: we had 5 hours of it per week in the first three grades, gradually ramping up to 6 in middle school and 7 in high school, and adding English literature on top of that. We wrote numerous essays, listened to recordings of native speakers, and spent a lot of time talking and listening to each other.

Then I went to study in a college in a country where English is a native language. I could read and write easily - better than natives in many cases, in fact (I'll never forget a rant that our elderly ethics teacher gave to me in private about how, based on the essays she was grading, only people with non-Anglo names could spell "its" vs "it's" right consistently). I could also speak fast while remaining perfectly understandable, and showing only a very subtle, hard-to-identify accent - that's where those hours of listening to tapes and talking with other students to polish pronunciation really paid off.

But for the life of me, I couldn't understand half of what people were saying. It was either too fast, or it was in an accent or dialect that was too unfamiliar to parse easily, or it was too casual (shortening or outright dropping many things that are always there in writing); and often, all of these at once. I had to ask people to slow down and repeat things - made all the more confusing because I spoke at a much faster pace (as I was taught to) than what I could follow.

It took about two months for everything to really click to the point where I could follow any conversation, and a lot longer than that before it stopped being a conscious mental effort.

oblio2• 9 years ago

It's the cultural proficiency that gets you.

By now I have probably spent 1000 hours learning (as part of a formal process), reading, listening, writing and speaking English. Probably a lot more, but let's go with that estimate. The actual language learning part was probably 20%, the rest was acquiring cultural references.

I'm trying to do the same for French, where I'm probably around level 2 or 3, and damn, I had forgotten how long it takes to "load the cart".

In my opinion, native speakers actually "become" "native" in a lesser degree because they were born to parents speaking that language and in a higher degree because they went through school in that language. All the basic lessons at school that everybody learns, all those initial social interactions, day in, day out, in the language they will use for the rest of the life.

It's a lot harder to squeeze those in later on, especially since the interlocutors become less and less accommodating.

xiaoma• 9 years ago

"It's the cultural proficiency that gets you."

Yes. This one of many reasons doing extensive reading of easy texts, children's stories and then later consuming TV and radio is so important. So many learners tend to take the approach of making a giant deck of flash cards or using an app like Duolingo and never get that much authentic input.

Going to school is probably the surest way to ensure that you do get all of the above, though it's not the only way. In the future, VR will give learners the quantity of practice and input that the world just doesn't have the patience to.

DINKDINK• 9 years ago

the rest was acquiring cultural references.

Exactly as I was reading this sentence I heard someone use the idiom in English, "You're in the home stretch". A bit of a comical coincidence.

crazygringo• 9 years ago

I'm American, lived in Brazil for 8 years, became totally fluent in Portuguese, worked at a local company, etc.

After about 5 years, I realized that no matter how much vocabulary I learned, how perfect my grammar was, or how reduced my accent was -- I would never get the references to childhood cartoons, or any of another 1,000 things that came from growing up there. And it's actually crazy how much of casual conversation revolves around all these things.

And finally coming back to the States, it was all just so easy -- such a luxury to have a whole shared cultural history with people I'd hang out with, so many jokes to make, so much richness to the conversation. Social conversation felt "full" again.

That's what they never tell you when you learn a new language -- the language alone isn't enough.

Addition: the funny thing is, I have a lot of non-American friends who get all (or most) of the American cultural references, because so many of them revolve around TV/movies, and those are exported around the globe. So part of the American so-called "melting pot", I suspect, is helped by the worldwide ubiquity of our entertainment culture.

LiweiZ• 9 years ago

And the best way to learn, practice and improve for the last two levels is to get involved, which means the ones need more chances are more likely to be separated from the group and this is very discouraging. Instead, babies and toddlers generally get more patient guides. That's a more important reason for adult second language learners. The general solution I can think of is to have a private coach to help them learn with feedback and correction so that learners are more likely to catch the limited chances to begin to get involved with groups. High quality chat bot could be a more affordable option for most learners, if the bot is good enough, which I'm not familiar with.

edit: combined two sentences into one.

edblarney• 9 years ago

It's by far more than just language.

Cultural norms, customs, and the fact that on many campuses, there are quite a number of foreigners, making it more difficult for the social scene to absorb.

US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture' as far as people outside the Anglosphere is concerned.

vacri• 9 years ago

US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture'

While indeed similar, a story on that: a friend at a high-end consulting firm here in Australia told of a US colleague who was over for a 6-month secondment. At the end of the visit, he apparently said "I wish I had known at the start that the people making fun of me probably liked me, and the people being perfectly polite probably didn't..."

hkmurakami4• 9 years ago

It's not just raw skill but fatigue from the mental exertion of using a foreign language all day. You take classes in a foreign language all day and it's very hard to spend the evening hours also exerting yourself linguistically. I can empathize with the desire to just take it easy using your native tongue after a long day of keeping up with academics in a non native language.

gozur88• 9 years ago

I think this is the case. When a relative of mine went to Germany as an exchange student she very much intended (as the program advises) to make a lot of non-English-speaking friends. But speaking German was effort for her in a way that speaking English isn't, and after awhile she naturally gravitated toward other English speakers when she was ready to relax.

dominotw2• 9 years ago

My US friends who moved to the UK or Australia had no problem making friends.

us, uk and australia are identical cultures. us and india or us and china is not even comparable.

Its not just language, its common cultural memes that bond people.

guitarbill2• 9 years ago

that's pretty demeaning. there's certainly overlap, however that's mostly US TV and movies being exported, which also happens in other (non-English speaking) countries. but each has a distinctive culture, with different TV shows, music, artists, celebrities, politicians, words, lifestyles etc.

now, speaking english with ease does make it easier to pick up on the differences. but it still takes effort to engage with people. i've seen people from other countries integrate easily because they were either very socially aware or simply made the effort, regardless if they spoke the local language with ease. this happens in countries and with people that aren't the UK, US, or Australia or from there.

TbobbyZ• 9 years ago

And this is why most people want immigrants to learn English when they come to the US. Assimilation!

habosa2• 9 years ago

And it's also the reason why throwing an immigrant in English classes won't actually assimilate them. You can't teach Levels 4 and 5 without driven students and a welcoming populace.

BlackjackCF• 9 years ago

It's a bit of a catch-22 because you need a high level of interaction with native speakers to be able to get to Level 4/5, but it's intimidating and difficult to do so.

Most of the international students I've interacted that pushed through this were really, really social to begin with.

Crisco• 9 years ago

I'm not a social person by nature, but when I decided I wanted to learn Spansh, I had to go out of my way to talk to Spanish with people I didn't know. It was scary, embarrassing, and at times depressing, but my desire to learn the language overcame my fear of social embarrassment. I'm now trying to do the same thing with Portuguese.

There are ways to force interaction, but if the student doesn't understand how to learn or doesn't have the desire, then they'll never be able to comfortably speak with people. They don't have to be really social (it certainly helps), they just have to want it enough.

return0• 9 years ago

I don't think that holds, the same happens with Erasmus students in europe (~40% don't make local friends).

https://thepienews.com/news/erasmus-students-local-friends-e...

And they mostly DO know english and the local language (in fact that's a common reason to do it).

sellweek• 9 years ago

That may also be a result of how Erasmus programs are structured. At least here in Czech Republic, Erasmus students tend to take classes taught in English, not classes taken by local students, so they interact with many other exchange students but not with locals.

verinus• 9 years ago

I would think it is even more extreme with Erasmus students.

My thoughts about this are: Erasmus students stay for a very limited time- 1 or two semesters and leave then. Forming real friendships take longer.

I have only so much time to meet and catch up with friends. Taking away from that time to invest in short term relations is a problem.

Erasmus student have other priorities than "natives". First is partying, second is partying and maybe third is university. From my experience regular students do not have the time to go out partying that much resulting in different peer groups.

stevenkovar• 9 years ago

Similarly, I made a good number of friends who were international students by playing intramural soccer. I suppose you could say soccer is a common language.

anigbrowl3• 9 years ago

'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.' - H. L. Mencken

American society is massively socially segregated by race and class, more so than in many other countries. I can form friendships with people with zero language in common, but it took me several years in the US to build a community of American friends despite being a native English speaker and a highly literate one at that.

thowfaraway• 9 years ago

I've been using HN daily for about 8 years. There are about 5 usernames I recognize because I'm wowed by their knowledgable responses. Then there are about 5 usernames I recognize because I go wow, that guy is always an argumentative abrasive jerk. Yours is one of the 5 in the second category. Your need to include the Mencken quote is a small example of what pushes you down into that category. Perhaps the reason you find it difficult to make friends in the real world isn't race, class, segregation, or language, but personality. People who lead with positivity, and the expectation that will be able to make friends probably do a lot better at it.

gukov• 9 years ago

American society is as good as it gets when it comes to inclusion. No other country, except maybe for Canada, had to deal with multiculturalism as much.

Humans are complicated social creatures by nature. There will always be cliques, competitiveness, the us against them mentality, etc. It's who we are. It's what got us here.

morgante3• 9 years ago

I'm not convinced that language is actually such an essential aspect. Cultural similarity seems like a much bigger one.

For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even after controlling for English levels.

int_19h5• 9 years ago

Both are essential aspects. I certainly struggled a lot with the language back in my day, as a Russian studying in New Zealand.

31reasons2• 9 years ago

I agree to this. As a Non western student I never had any American friends in Collage. After more than a decade living in the US I still don't have any. Primarily because I am introverted but culturally I care less about American sports and music (two big cultural domains).

Edit: Another important factor (at least during collage) is the financial one. As a student from a poor country I had far less financial resources to afford a life style that American students enjoy. For example, I couldn't afford to go out or have a Car.

dsfyu404ed• 9 years ago

This is consistent with my experience in college.

The alcohol doesn't care what language you speak.

coraphans4• 9 years ago

If that were the case, then you should see Chinese international students hanging out with Japanese and Koreans.

But from what I've seen, the various East Asian groups don't interact much. And each group speaks their own native language.

gedrap• 9 years ago

It actually is but obviously varies from person to person and from one environment to other.

I am from Eastern Europe and did my degree in England. In the first year, I lived in university halls and out of 8 people in the flat (including me), 6 people were English. It was really really hard initially because I could understand only about half of what they were saying because of the accents, so it was hard to participate and much easier to just browse internet in my room.

However, I picked up the language really quickly since I was very often surrounded by native speakers so all was good at the end, just the initial couple of months were really tough.

lwdjklfad2• 9 years ago

Indeed. My experience as an Indian grad student in Seattle was a miserable one to say the least; now I think of Americans as pretentious jerks who spare no moment to talk about "diversity" & "equality" and all these things, when in reality they are biologically just as "racist" as the red-necks.

I realized after a while to understand that what people really meant (in practice) was only that they were against the public display of insult, that one ought to be treated with a modicum of politeness. After the pleasantries, most folk just ignored you as if you didn't exist (or would talk behind your back). Some folk stood out and were just outright obnoxious for no reason.

Oddly, I developed a dislike for meeting the same non-Indian people twice. Meh. I wasn't annoyed because of these differences - I do believe they're biological - but I wish the discourse was more rooted in reality, which would've led to me to make better choices. I may not like Trump supporters, but hey I think they're atleast being honest you know. I now think of liberals as being hypocrites who use words to break apart communities and atomize people (more true of India than the US - but that's another story).

This is not to say that Americans aren't decent people - that they are - but there is a lot of pretension in that society. India is by comparison more than tolerable on that metric (if you keep away from the Westernized lot).

flamedoge• 9 years ago

I heard this site reddit is great for picking up on dank memes and social cues

abalone• 9 years ago

This notion is simplistic and unsupported by the article. The article mentions nothing about language proficiency and plenty about cultural adjustment, specifically about how peers and teachers interact with one another. There is a lot more cultural overlap with UK and Australia.

wallace_f3• 9 years ago

I have spent years living abroad and am utterly unconvinced by this argument.

The people who are easiest to befriend are not those with the best language skills, they are those with the same cultural (or sometimes religious) values. At least that has been a very consistent, reliable way of modelling this phenomenon of human behaviour in my travels.

A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends.

Other values around sex and relationships are more subtle but of real importance.

Further, pushing the limits of what's PC to say, the fact is many cultures have a "we need to stick together," or "we stick together to preserve our culture" attitude that ends up also drawing boundaries around social circles based on race due to culture.

Very close relationships, such as romantic relationships, on the other hand quickly approach the point where language fluency becomes absolutely necessary. But friends to do activities with on the other hand--I love it when people are speaking other languages, have different reactions and place different significance on events. It adds spice to life and opens your eyes to see other ways of viewing things the same way you always had.

rootsudo3• 9 years ago

I have to disagree on: "A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends."

Alcohol was always big in Eastern cultures. It's just not dominated because it is always considered an old people thing, not what young people do.

kagamine• 9 years ago

A few comments below disagree with you, but my experience is exactly as you described it, and I am a native English speaker in Norway, where everyone speaks English (although not nearly as well as the media or the locals wold have you think). When it comes to following along at a noisy social event or when there are many conversations happening simultaneously I fall somewhere between 3 and 4 on the list. Cultural references and expressions can easily boot me from a conversation as I lose the thread and have to start thinking about the conversation instead of partaking naturally. There is little in the way of real cultural differences between the UK and Scandinavia but enough to make a person feel like an outsider. This often leads to me abandoning social interactions.

adim86• 9 years ago

Although this could be a factor, I have to disagree on this. Before any foreign student is given admission to an American University you need to take TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). You need this to be a high score to get admitted and depending on the country, you need to show this score at the American Embassy to get a student Visa. Unless it is some exchange program ALL foreign university students can speak English on a conversational level.

I am from Nigeria, where English is the National language. I grew up visiting America as a child because my parents grew up there for some portion of their lives. So even with all my linguistic advantages I still bonded more with other International students faster and better than I did with Americans (regardless of race).

I would say the issue I found was cultural, basic things like sense of humor differs. What a Nigerian finds funny is not always the same thing an American would find funny and vice versa.If you cannot laugh together, you have a problem. Same with etiquette, some things a Nigerian may do might be seen as rude to an American but a sign of love in Nigeria. The second issue I found is that Americans don't have a lot of curiosity beyond their own culture. A lot of Americans have the idea America is the best country in the world, so what could they learn from anyone else when they push the world forward, so there is a lack of interest to understand others perspectives and there is a gap.

I personally worked hard to have American friends and I have life long ones today both white,black, latino and Asian American friends but this did not come easy. This took about 10 years of open-mindedness and extroversion that was not always reciprocated.

Arizhel6• 9 years ago

But it can fall apart in a social setting. Once there are 5 overlapping streams of conversation stuffed full of cultural references these coworkers of mine very frequently lose track of the conversation and become quieter and quieter over time.

Hmm, this sounds exactly like me. And I'm a white American guy (obviously, English is my first and pretty much only language, unless you count the German I learned in high school where I don't even meet your level 1).

I'd say I'm at your level 4 with English. When there's too many people talking, I'm unable to discriminate. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, if the relative volumes are different enough I can (so in a bar if someone is talking into my ear and the other conversations are in the background, I can make it out though I'll ask for a lot of repeats), but my big problem is in the workplace, where people for some reason insist on carrying out multiple loud conversations in the same room, right next to each other, and seem to have no concept (unlike the bar-goers) that it's really really hard to follow one conversation when the other one is right next to you at the same volume.

Yet another reason I totally regret going into engineering and software, and wish I had gone into something else where I'd get an office.

flour_power• 9 years ago

Native english speaker and I can't do 5 half the time.

popobobo• 9 years ago

40% of US students in the US have no close American friends on campus too. We all went to college. Come one. That is how it is. I wouldn't call the dude saying hi to me everyday the room next door ma friend. They are all just living around me. We all have to pretend to be nice to each other because none of us wants trouble. Sure we do hang out or get drunk at the party. But we are not friends. The only true friend I got is my college sweet heart.

010a• 9 years ago

I can't generalize for every school, or everyone at every school. I attended an engineering program at one of the top 5 schools by total international student population.

Honestly, international students are cliquey. Many of them that I talk to openly admit to cheating on their english proficiency exams universities require you to take before you can attend. Meshing with local students is nearly impossible if you don't understand the language proficiently.

I'd expect you'd see roughly the same numbers if you looked at American students in Chinese universities, or elsewhere. But we have to make this anti-American because its Quartz, and Trump is bad, right?

hkmurakami4• 9 years ago

I'm sort of okay with the cheating on English proficiency exams. They're pretty contrived anyways.

But these groups also tend to help each other out in cheating on actual assignments and tests, which doesn't sit well with the me.

arambhashura2• 9 years ago

Going off-topic from the OP: Not only that, but when I was a foreign student, the Indian and Chinese students had networks of past-year students, who'd built up databases of exam questions. While perhaps strictly not cheating, this gave them an advantage, because some professors repeated questions from previous quarters/years. Some of us thought that was unfair, and talked with the professors and they were unwilling to ensure that questions were not repeated. So we asked the professors to give us exam questions from the last few years, and made them available to everyone in the library. Hopefully this at least leveled the playing field a tiny bit, but I'm not sure it mattered in the grand scheme of things. (Disclosure: I'm Indian too).

kyle-rb• 9 years ago

international students are cliquey

I've noticed this at my college firsthand; I see groups or pairs of Chinese students speaking solely Chinese. Speaking in their native language isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly makes them less approachable.

coraphans4• 9 years ago

From my experience, these Chinese students probably did try at first to make friends with local Americans, but were made fun of because of their accents.

So rather than be humiliated, they chose to just hang out with people who won't insult them.

jonathankoren5• 9 years ago

Seems like kind of a leap to declare an article about cultural gaps and "adjustment fatigue" to be "anti-American."

Not everything is political, dude.

jogjayr3• 9 years ago

international students are cliquey.

It might help if you understand why they're cliquey. Many of them are living away from home for the first time, so hanging out with familiar faces and having shared cultural references is comforting (though it sounds wrong). They may not be as proficient in English as they are in their native tongues, so they speak their own languages when they're with each other. And of course to an outsider, a group of people speaking a foreign language seems very forbidding and closed off. Believe me, they (mostly) don't want to be seen that way.

I think pretty much every "group" is cliquey. My own Masters class (about 20-25 people, 50-50 American/foreign) splintered into 2-3 disjoint groups almost immediately after the introductory mixer. I understood and spoke English fine. But not knowing any American pop culture (music, TV shows, sci-fi, games etc. and my own introversion, meant I didn't know then how to deal with people I didn't that have much in common with) meant that I was filtered out of the most likely "group" (students roughly my age). They may all have been speaking English but all the alien (to me) cultural references made it seem forbidding (who's Stephen Colbert? what's Arrested Development? why is it a faux pas to admit liking Coldplay and U2 and Nickelback?). I ended up hanging out with other students from my own country.

I'd expect you'd see roughly the same numbers if you looked at American students in Chinese universities, or elsewhere

You're right. Most people struggle to flourish socially in foreign cultures; I think this is universally true.

But we have to make this anti-American

I didn't see the article as anti-American at all. It was more "Isn't it unfortunate how these students are missing out?"

I personally blame myself for my own social isolation during my Masters. I should've tried harder.

chillacy4• 9 years ago

To be fair, at companies when people interview and deny a candidate for "cultural fit", they mean "this candidate doesn't interact and know the same cultural references as my in-group", so this type of exclusion is pretty common.

kop3165• 9 years ago

Out of curiousity, did you meet or make many American friends? To me, I enjoy meeting different people from different cultures. I imagine I am not the only one.

coraphans4• 9 years ago

Honestly, international students are cliquey.

Since we're generalizing here, I'll say the reason for this is, honestly, American students are mean and like to make fun of our accents.

azinman2• 9 years ago

Years ago I studied abroad for a year in the U.K. I'm American, so no language barriers, but I found it very difficult to make British friends. I was friends with my flat mates who were British, but otherwise only the Germans were friendly to me. The other international students tended to stick to themselves (particularly the Chinese and Pakistani), despite my attempts at bridging the gap.

Homophily is a known social bias, and certainly affects people in their own country let alone a foreign one. I wonder how much of this is "America" per se, versus standard social forces that affect all populations.

1024core• 9 years ago

When I came to the US, I made an effort to reach out to Americans (in the dorms, in class, etc). I found that, after you remove the veneer of programmed culture and biases, under it we're basically all the same: similar goals, fears, aspirations, etc. I formed some very close friendships with Americans, and I'm still close friends with them 20+ years later.

My point is: as a newbie in this country, I had to make the effort; if I didn't do that, I would not have made those friendships.

arambhashura2• 9 years ago

Not everyone is up to making that effort (I agree that they _should_).

For me personally, I could easily have ended up in the 40%. I was not very social, and would have had problems making friends with anyone. As an Indian, I'd probably have welcomed Indian friends, just because I'd have felt less ill-at-ease with them. Luckily, my English was good, I loved playing sports, and some American students made an effort to make friends. That made all the difference. I really appreciate those classmates who made an effort to know a strange-looking, strange-talking kid. They made a massive positive difference in my life.

Also, I did some free tutoring. I probably wouldn't know anyone outside of Engineering, had I not done that.

Another large difference nowadays, I suspect, is that a critical mass of students of certain cultures has been reached. So it's perhaps difficult to break out of a default behaviour of hanging out with "your own kind". When a foreign student arrives in the US, the local <insert foreign-country here> students association welcomes them and helps set them up. Right there are laid the potential foundations of remaining in the comfort zone of fellow countrymen.

aakriti12154• 9 years ago

I personally chose to come to University in the US and had a great experience. While my campus had issues with international students and domestic students being divided, we did a lot of research for our newspaper and wrote opinion pieces on how to bridge the gap.

If you'd like to read about another perspective to how international students feel after coming to the US, here's an opinion piece I wrote: http://www.dailynebraskan.com/opinion/agrawal-us-universitie...

If you'd like to read more about what it's like to be an international student making friends with domestic students: http://www.dailynebraskan.com/opinion/agrawal-making-friends...

Here's an article one of my colleagues wrote about making friends with international students as a domestic student: http://www.dailynebraskan.com/opinion/simon-making-friends-w...

aakriti12154• 9 years ago

Please note this article is from 2012. I feel like the HN headline should be edited to reflect this.

Semaphor• 9 years ago

Just an anecdote from a medium sized German town:

We had two big bunches of foreign students, Chinese and US Americans. Americans organized a lot of parties, the Chinese were hard to engage with. We had a big international community (language exchange regular meetings, parties, movies, BBQs, etc.) But the general thing from the Chinese group was what seemed like shyness. Even when one managed to get them to join, they tended to leave early and barely interact (not for a lack of trying). There were exceptions of course, and I'm currently subletting my apartment (while in another country) to two Chinese students, one of whom turned out to be very talkative once he opened up. But for the majority I met it's really hard to get them to get them to open up. There is some cultural barrier that's very hard to break.

Of course this might be the same for other nationalities, but as those usually arrived here alone, they didn't have a group of countrymen to fall back to and I couldn't tell.

ChicagoBoy11• 9 years ago

I moved to the US when I was 12 and my middle school principal tried finding someone who spoke my language that I could shadow. She couldn't. Little did I know then, but I think that it might have been the thing that had the biggest outcome in my success in the US.

There were other kids who joined the school from other countries right around the same time as me (we all did ESL together), but they all spoke languages that were highly represented in the school. Over the years, it was incredibly noticeable to me how insular they ended up -- hanging out mostly with expat friends, speaking their native language on breaks, etc.

Meanwhile, I had to try and make American friends any way possible -- which for me was through our school's robotics club (and since I am typing this here, you can guess that the rest is history)

I completely understand the way immigrants rightfully treasure and celebrate their heritage. But I have always found it puzzling -- especially in college -- to see people from overseas mostly hanging out with their own.

I have heard far too many times how "cold" Americans are, how they aren't friendly to foreigners, etc. At least in my experience, that could not be further from the truth. What I HAVE observed is foreigners like myself failing to leave the safety of their known communities and fulling embracing the experience they supposedly came here for.

booh• 9 years ago

You can become extremely proficient in the language and be highly sensitive to the culture. You can also spend 10 years in the country to the point were you grasp practically everything, no matter how much randomness is involved in the conversation or the place and time it takes place.

It does not matter. Majority of foreigners, westerners or not, won't have real local friends in English speaking countries.

Even though you do acclimatize to the culture and language you might still not be fond of it. I lived in countries were it would have been easier than in others to interact with people, but in the end I wasn't able to because I either wasn't a fond drinker (commonplace in all english speaking countries) or I didn't enjoy being involved in mundane silly-office conversations during the smoke break.

Most of the fresh expats can't even realize what they are getting into when they move into another country. If you are deciding to do so and you come across this post, do it, go and check it out, but beware that your inner you will never completely mold to that place.

tn13• 9 years ago

My wife studied at an American college. She had no friends. The college had over 100 students 100% of them from India, Middle East and Turkey. The college was nothing but a way for H4 women to get F1 so that they could eventually get OPT and instead of being deadweight at home they could stand on their own legs. This is probably one of the N colleges out there.

There aren't too many American citizens in these colleges and I will not be surprised if these student constitute 50% of total F1s.

coolkarni• 9 years ago

I found that sports and trivia knowledge is more important than language skills when interacting with the "locals".

yalogin• 9 years ago

If there are 750K foreign students coming in every year to the US why are there only 65K H1 visas per year available? Surely they should expect at least 10% of them to want to work in the US after their education right? With that why is everyone acting as if the Indian outsourcing companies are the problem for the H1 visa shortage?

ap462• 9 years ago

Its because 65K is for workers without degrees from US colleges & another 25K is for people with degrees from US to get the OPT. The 65K gets 85% applicants from IT companies based out of India, those jobs don't pay well but companies willing to pay decent salaries get thrown out of it coz of sheer probabilities. There was a post some time back recommending a application fee based on the number of applications from a single entity.

chrisper3• 9 years ago

Not quite. You only get the 25K if you graduate in the US from a graduate program. If you graduate with a Bachelors you are not eligible for the extended cap (25K). But the OPT still works.

morgante3• 9 years ago

Did they compare against American students though? Modern culture is making everyone increasingly lonely and isolated, so I wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of that number is explained by the fact that going off to college and making close friends can be difficult whether you're from Nebraska or Nanjing.

That being said, the cultural aspect can't be ignored. There's a reason that despite going to two very international schools, almost all of my close friends are European, American, or Australian.

nradov• 9 years ago

As a point of comparison how many domestic students have no close friends on campus? In other words, what's the differential between foreign students and those who grew up here?

amyjess• 9 years ago

I remember, several years ago (2010-ish), a friend's roommate brought a couple of his Indian coworkers home. I got to meet them because I was hanging out with my friend at the time. They hung out for a bit, and then he took them to a shooting range, bringing his gun collection along.

Before they left, he told my friend and I that he was doing this because he read a statistic showing that a huge percent of Indian-born workers have never been in an American's home, so he wanted to get his coworkers out of that statistic.

In hindsight, that act was the only decent thing that man has ever done (he is no longer on speaking terms with me, my friend, or virtually everyone else we know for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with his co-workers).

junnan• 9 years ago

Dude, the stories you didn't tell are far more intriguing

socrates1998• 9 years ago

I am curious as to what the ultimate goal is for these foreign undergrads. Get a job in America? Go back home and get a job?

I guess it all depends on the home country and the American school, but I wonder how valuable an American undergrad degree is worth in their home countries?

I know in Japan it often isn't seen as worth it because in Japanese undergrad programs, the people you meet often are a major part of your network along with the people you went to high school and middle school. And these networks are essential to your career arc.

So, by going to school in the US, you lose out on these networks.

But, if your goal is to get a job at an international company where you speak English or get a job in the US, then I guess it is worth it.

chrisper3• 9 years ago

Some people (like me) just wanted to experience living in the US for some longer time. Some people (like me) just wanted to experience something else than just the home country. Eventually getting a job here was on the plan, but since I over time started to dislike this place, I will be going back home in a few months. I am glad I came here because it allowed to learn more about the US.

JoeAltmaier• 9 years ago

I sometimes work with foreign engineers, often educated in America and working their first or second job. My wife and I often invite them and their spouse home for a dinner.

In every case, they mention sometime during the evening that its the first American home they have ever been inside. After years of school and job. Every, every case.

Americans, we can do something about this! Invite a newcomer coworker to join you for dinner! Its so simple.

mvp• 9 years ago

That's a great point.

zaxxal• 9 years ago

As someone who grew up heavily in both the west and east, it's most definitely a cultural issue. IMO Americans tend to be oblivious to so many things and try to hide their ignorance behind liberal values. Which I'm all for, but conversing becomes a game of "what can I say and not have to have a huge discussion explaining my opinion." Mix that in with the college experience and it starts to make sense. I blame the schools for not properly educating children in this country.

normalperson1232• 9 years ago

love the foreign students.

normalperson1232• 9 years ago

theres a mad dash for everyone in the world to come to american universities and suck every last drop of credibility from them. for a long time college has been getting worse. we went from college being a selective and prestigious club to what we have now: giant degree mills where actual learning is a fucking foot note. and college has become this way because everyone needs a college degree now because there are no jobs for the ordinary joe who doesnt have a degree or connections. so college has been on this slow decline and now we see a ton of asian students who are coming and getting degrees while they still have some value. so at the end of the day the whole thing just stinks. you walk around and look at all the amazing buildings and amenities that the school spent millions upon millions upon millions of fucking dollars on to attract the rich foreign students and out of state party students and the domestic rich students. meanwhile the quality of the education that students get has plummeted. students dont learn anything anymore. elon musk read his physics text book and showed up to exams. he was able to pass because he learned the material. maybe other people have has a different experience but that has not been possible at my school. i had a single professor who went against the current and taught for understanding and at the start of the class he practically got on his hands and knees and begged the students to read the book. being new, i didnt understand. but soon i realized that it was because students dont actually read the books! every other professor chooses some shit textbook thats filled with irrelevant material and you are forced to only read the equations and game the fucking system and get points. learning has been totally abandoned! and now i see swarms of asian students cheating on every exam and i look at the state of the college and it just depresses me. i was in an algorithms class and we had a quiz. times up, we are walking to the front to turn things in and there was an asian guy standing in front of the desk, looking at other peoples papers and copying the answers. completely brazen. and the nobody did anything. nobody gave a shit. and i go to a well known school. the state of affairs is not good.

redditmigrant• 9 years ago

For me personally as a foreign student from India the biggest hurdle was cultural. I didnt know much about Star Wars, or American TV of the 1980s-90s which meant I couldnt just jump in to most conversations. The second biggest hurdle was that I just didnt enjoy drinking and drinking games to the extent that is a part of contemporary American college setup. Thus I didnt have stories of things I did while drunk. All this combined meant it became hard to enjoy settings with predominantly American/Western groups.

At some point sub-consciously I stopped trying and went into my comfort zone i.e. other Indian people who got my jokes, and where I didnt have to give cultural context before every life story I was telling. I do regret not having made friends from alternate cultures while I had the best opportunity i.e. in college.

gjdickens• 9 years ago

I'm surprised drinking culture hasn't been mentioned more here. As an American who when to an American university, I had no friends who were non-American. When I reflect on the reason for this, I do remember meeting students from other countries but they had different priorities than myself and my group of friends at the time so we never really clicked. (our priority was to go out and drink as often as possible - 4 days per week usually) For someone coming from a country where alcohol is consumed in moderation from young ages, I can see how this would be an unappealing scene to get into.

Arizhel6• 9 years ago

I'm surprised drinking culture hasn't been mentioned more here. As an American who when to an American university, I had no friends who were non-American.

Yeah, I think it's a big factor. I'm a white American and went to an American university, and in my later years (I transferred midway through to go to a better engineering school), all of my friends were non-American. Why didn't I have any American friends? Probably largely because I don't drink and don't care about sports. (I'm not a teetotaler, I just don't like alcohol much, and at most will drink a little wine, and even here I hate the dry ones. I also have a peculiar condition where it seems that alcohol has no effect on me; I can drink a couple glasses of wine and not feel anything. I don't want to try any more than that.)

I had a few American friends at my first university, but I met them because I lived on the same floor in the dorm as them. I never had the dorm experience in the second university. And they didn't drink either.

Dating American women has never gone all that great for me either. Now I'm dating an Asian woman, who, you guessed it, doesn't drink.

cblock811• 9 years ago

I studied hospitality in Switzerland for a while and was surprised that some of my classmates just wouldn't integrate with the students there. It was as if they had some aversion to change/something different. Normally I wouldnt find that behavior odd but the whole point of hospitality is to engage and be welcoming. I could see it being a stonger issue for people in other areas of study

sametmax• 9 years ago

So 60% DO have close friends that have a very different culture and language. I find that very positive. I traveled all my life, and I know how hard it is to do it. Well done !

seattle_spring• 9 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if 40% of all students have no close friends on campus.

Crolle• 9 years ago

I think it has more to do with the culture than with the campus context. It seems to me that North Americans value more politeness and independence, whereas Europeans think more in term of honesty and reliability. That's why you hear stories of French people being "rude" and Americans being "superficial" or "fake", for instance. Building strong relationships is not impossible, but it is more difficult and it takes time, and a semester can be too short. I'd imagine it can be even worse for people with even fewer common cultural ties.

lr• 9 years ago

I was friends with many foreign students in college (a large school in the midwest), and it was because all of them wanted to meet people unlike them. One friend, from Zimbabwe (who was originally from Sri Lanka), once said to me, "I can never understand why all of the foreign students hang out with only people from their own country." She was pretty exceptional, but it's true in general. A lot of Americans do the same thing when they go overseas. It kind of makes no sense to go all of that way, and then just hang out with people just like you.

kop3165• 9 years ago

I would like to frame my thoughts on this as an American that is dating a Taiwanese person, and as someone who has traveled around the USA a lot. I also ran my thoughts by her and she agreed with what I said.

First, I think there are two types of people who travel to a new place (this can be a different part of the country, or a foreign student to the USA): 1) the person who wants to try new things and enjoy where they are, or 2) the type of person who hates where they are and refuse to try anything new.

The latter type of foreign student will not make any American friends. They will only stick with their culture and friends of their culture. She has also said a lot of people feel very nervous speaking English, because they will they will get something wrong and get ridiculed for doing so.

As an American with foreigners in my classes, there are also people who speak their native language to other students who speak it. I empathize with the fact that it is easier for them, but by doing that, the effect that I get is the feeling of exclusion, so I cannot even attempt to try to befriend them. As an anecdote to that, I can say I have felt resentful when I have been the only American in a group of Taiwanese and they did not speak English at all when I was there, as the message I got is they don't want me in the conversation.

I hate to say, it is very intimidating, but if you want to befriend Americans while in the country, you HAVE to speak English as much as possible. I am, and I would like to think any others are very forgiving in the fact that they know English isn't your first language, and are happy to accommodate that. If you do not, most Americans will feel excluded and not even attempt to befriend you.

153a• 9 years ago

It goes both ways. Aside from cultural differences, I would assume you would also feel excluded or isolated if you were the only non-American among a group of Americans who only spoke English, and you didn't understand or speak English.

Note that English is used as a universal language in international settings, and that you are a native English speaker. It's somewhat easier for you since they would know a least a little bit of English, while you wouldn't know their language unless you have some level of proficiency.

Also, Americans generally have a culture of accommodation or assimilation, while people from other cultures may not. The social environment when the host population interacts among each other as peers is also different than when interacting with foreigners, as it requires a separate form of interaction that isn't the norm. This applies to both Americans and other nationalities.

kop3165• 9 years ago

I agree, and it wouldn't surprise to hear that there are also Americans who are uninterested in trying to accomidate forgeiners, and I imagine that would be very discouraging for someone who tries to get out of their comfort zone as well.

caidh• 9 years ago

I had a college roommate from Hong Kong for a couple years. He specifically asked for an American roommate, and I think we both benefited from the exchange. His English was far better than most of his friends after that time. It's hard though, if I were in his place, I might have been more insular as well seeking out those with my native language.

He also got to laugh hysterically as he saw me try to pronounce some greetings/messages in Cantonese to his father who would call from Hong Kong, so there was that benefit too.

aaron695• 9 years ago

"You never meet people in their own country" is a factoid I've noticed.

You have more in common with fellow travelers than you will have with people who are just status quo.

preexo• 9 years ago

Living in south east Asia I see more than 40% of US American expatriates who are living here not having even a single native/local friend...

ap462• 9 years ago

Another way to look at this is American students don't engage with 40% foreign students on campus. It takes two to tango.

lazaroclapp2• 9 years ago

Most foreign students are in the US for a two years masters program, which is not that long a time to assimilate to any culture. I am from a relatively similar western culture, I arrived here thinking to myself in English 50% of the time (not my native language, but my main "Internet language"). I still spent my whole first year with my closest group of friends consisting chiefly of Germans, Greeks (from actual Greece, not a frat house), Indians and Chinese. It wasn't that it was easier to breach that cultural gap, but more that other international students were aware that there was a gap to be breached. Americans seemed always more likely to only understand overtures of friendship in their very specific cultural context, and even with extensive American media exposure it takes a few comical mishaps to become fully conversant in that cultural code, independent of language. English fluency was the lesser of the issues for me, but admittedly having a strong accent can make it even harder to be understood at a loud party even if it is perfectly fine for asking questions in class. I don't blame the natives at all for it, but do keep in mind that it is the foreign students who often do 9 parts in 10 of the effort. Wonder what is the statistic - even for colleges that are 50/50 overall - of "American student with no foreign student close friends".

For the curious: I did end up having a much closer group of friends including roughly 50% American students later, though, after bonding over one of the most American experiences possible, a Spring break trip.

geezer• 9 years ago

If foreign students want to make American friends, they should be prepared to feel uncomfortable and also be willing to make others uncomfortable.

There is no easy way. You have to separate yourself from your comfort zone. That includes others from your home country as well as other international students. Live with an American roommate, go to every (American) party you are invited to. Say no to every (non-American) party you are invited to. Find an American gf/bf or keep trying. Join volunteering activities (food drives, blood drives, salvation army etc) to meet locals.

In a couple of years, you would have made yourself deeply uncomfortable on many occasions, annoyed some people, but by now you'll be talking and walking like an American.

This applies in general to immigrants who tend to huddle together because it is the easier thing to do. That is why in most cases, cultural assimilation takes atleast a generation.

BrailleHunting• 9 years ago

Student unions should encourage "welcome committees" to make sure no one whom wants to participate in the social scene is left out. (dorm life was the best.)

ajaimk• 9 years ago

A very one sided argument and a good example of using statistics for evil.

I came to the US in 2007 for my Undergrad from Dubai (Indian by Birth). I lived on a dorm floor with 40 people and only another Indian and I didn't actually talk to that guy much. Most of my friends are Americans including some of my closest - To be honest, the few Indian friends I have are people from work.

End of the day it comes down to your comfort zone. People who come to another country to get an "American degree" will stick to their comfort zone. For those of us who come to explore and understand the local culture, we're going to assimilate into the local culture (my kickball team calls me a coconut: Brown on the outside and white on the inside).

Do you want to stay a tourist or become a local?

partycoder• 9 years ago

Consider yourself in the following scenario:

You hang out with Indians and they start talking about Cricket, a sport that is widely watched there, but also a sport that most likely you know nothing about. How can you partake in that conversation? you can, probably, but only at a basic level and you might not have a lot to add.

So, the same happens with American football, or baseball, or sports that are not widely followed elsewhere.

Those types of conversations marginalize foreigners, even if it's non intentional. Now, if you have empathy, you might prefer to talk about something else, with the purpose of being inclusive.

Arizhel6• 9 years ago

So, the same happens with American football, or baseball, or sports that are not widely followed elsewhere. Those types of conversations marginalize foreigners, even if it's non intentional.

What about those of us Americans who don't give two shits about American football or baseball or other sports (including cricket)?

And am I "marginalizing" someone if I want to talk about D&D, or retro gaming, or astrophysics, or some obscure musical genre?

DarkIye• 9 years ago

As a university student in London, I noticed Chinese students (the main foreign contingent of the student body) overwhelmingly tended to socialise with one another, and groups of Chinese students speaking Mandarin to each other was a common sight on campus. If you weren't a Chinese speaker, it was hard to penetrate these groups (I tried and failed). Is this also the case in American colleges?

merraksh• 9 years ago

Having lived in a few countries, I wouldn't be surprised if an extended research showed that in country X, a significant percentage of foreigners have no close friend from X.

In fact it is much easier to make friends with other foreigners, even when not fluent in country X's language.

kingkawn• 9 years ago

It is because Americans are cultureless robots pumped full of paper thin thoughts, who have replaced any experience of togetherness with consumer preferences

known• 9 years ago

Why should they have "close" American friends? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...

40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

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