In a climate where US universities are scrambling to find solutions to encourage more international student involvement and assimilation on campus, Chinese student Zhou Yeran provides some suggestions. She majors in English at Illinois university and writes for their university newspaper.
Although she has some ideas of what could work, she knows what doesn't work. At her college, English as a Second Language (ESL) courses are required for students from non English-speaking countries. She thinks, "while these solutions are well-intentioned, they don't always work." I can definitely see how ESL classes can help Chinese students get more involved on campus. Language barriers are one of the biggest reasons that separate people from interacting. However, social behavior depends on many more factors than just language, such as being able to relate to someone's interests.
A big reason why Chinese students don't interact much with domestic students is because there's already enough other Chinese students on campus to relate with. Yeran explains that there's less of a motivation to interact with American students because "they have their group already – their Chinese clique." If I studied abroad, I'd likely gravitate mostly towards other American students for friendship, too. It's just easier to interact with people who share your native tongue but also have a shared culture. There's a lot less to work through in terms of barriers. I imagine it would be especially prevalent in students who are shy.
A glaring flaw that a lot of universities miss is that not all foreign students want to "assimilate" and find that idea far removed from their priorities as a student. It's a positive that universities are making an attempt to make students feel more included, but they have to be careful that these efforts don't come across as alienating. Thinking about assimilation, Yeran mentions, "One of the problems with “helping” Chinese students assimilate into U.S. universities that such efforts can actually feel a little condescending – many don’t want to assimilate." A Chinese classmate of hers adds, “We are all adults here, and I can manage my own life perfectly fine. What makes them think I want their help?” This is one thing I've always been curious about. Since I'm white myself, I could never know if these efforts seemed condescending or not for sure, although I had my suspicions. On the other hand, I am a woman, so I have dealt with university efforts to assimilate women into STEM fields. As a prior computer science major, I've had tons of offers to enter "women's only" spaces for those into STEM majors, and they've always felt condescending in a similar way. Like Yeran's friend, I didn't feel the need for special treatment based on a static thing such as race or sex, so I understand the sentiment from this view.
Yeran makes an interesting separation between types of Chinese students. The first group leads "a hermetic life," the second group comes from "well-to-do families" that are only interested in Chinese student life, and and the third group that "embraces the new experiences, with or without help." She has a few theories on why all Chinese students aren't like the third group who are willing to tackle their new life in the United States with enthusiasm. One of them is that there "simply aren’t over 157,000 people in China who can go to a foreign country with drastically different social norms and succeed in that new environment." The third group definitely requires a certain kind of person when in reality all humans are very diverse in personality.
Finally, Yeran's solution to all this is for colleges to admit less Chinese students. To me this was a surprising conclusion, especially since she's a Chinese student herself. But the more I read, the more I understood the reasoning. Again, a big issue is that Chinese students go to US universities and only interact with other Chinese students because there are so many of them. Yeran adds, "it’s tempting even for adventurous students to hang around with those who can speak their first language." I can see how this is a big crutch to international students that even a strong ESL program can't overcome. On the other hand, other Chinese students "often comment sarcastically that they thought it was America they were coming to, not Chinatown." Students don't only come for the education, they also often come for the immersion in another culture, so this is understandable. After all, the main point of "exchange" is for countries to share their cultures with each other.
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