Campus group helps international students adjust to life at Princeton

As most freshmen will still vividly recall, the prospect of leaving home and entering college is often daunting. In addition to academic concerns, when first-year students arrive on campus, they are faced with challenges as small as buying books and as daunting as making a new set of friends.

What most students take for granted is the general cultural understanding they already have by their freshman fall. For foreign students, though, arriving at Princeton for the first time demands more than finding the U-Store and an attempt to make new friends.

Instead, it requires a complete re-learning of social norms and expectations, said Ananya Lodaya, president of ISAP, International Students' Association at Princeton.

"Entering college is tumultuous enough, and it's twice as hard when you're alien to the culture," she said.

The University does not expect international students to make the transition to American life completely by themselves, though.

In fact, one of Lodaya's most significant responsibilities as president of ISAP is to organize a four-day long International Pre-Orientation — the foreign student's version of Outdoor or Urban Action, more commonly known as "Pre-Or."

During their days at Pre-Or, international students tend to become fast friends with each other. It is, Lodaya said, a good way to break the ice by meeting others who are faced with similar challenges and, often, similar emotions.

"It's a wonderful way for international kids to settle in, get familiar with the campus, make new friends and establish a support system before regular orientation sets in," she said. "Pre-Or is to help people overcome the handicap of being in a completely different culture in the midst of so much change and flux."

In the two years since her own Pre-Or experience, Lodaya said she has grown to love Princeton and has become involved with the women's crew team.

"I've had a wonderful time here, but it has taken some work," she said. "I've had to force myself to go out there and push past my comfort zone."

Still, she said she understands that not every international student's experience is as positive as hers has been. She points to the fact that many international students do not join eating clubs, which may be an indicator of discomfort not only with the University's social life, but also with the American "mainstream."

"I would say that the biggest issue is that international students tend to clique together," Lodaya said.

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Though she said she sees the process of clique formation as part of a natural adjustment process — finding comfort in those who have something in common with you — Lodaya said the University's Pre-Or program has come under fire for helping establish "international cliques" before foreign students even meet American students.

"Those first four days in a new country, you're going through upheavals and adjustments and emotions that you've never really experienced before," she said. "And, because you're going through so much, you form extraordinarily strong bonds with the people who are going through it with you."

Nonetheless, Lodaya said she believes most foreign students do eventually begin to branch out into other communities. Still, she noted, "you'll find that most international freshmen sit with other international freshmen in the dining hall."

The issue of self-segregation begs the greater question of how welcomed international students feel on campus. In general, Lodaya said, most foreign students feel the attitude of other students is basically one of nonchalance.

"I think most international students feel that the campus atmosphere to international kids is one of complete apathy and indifference," she said. "There's no hostility or anything, but just complete unconcern, and no allowances are made because you don't have the same accent or you don't know what J.Crew is or because you're just not used to the social set up," she added.

Even though campus sentiments may have remained largely unchanged, being a foreigner in the United States became significantly more difficult following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In fact, Weining Man, a second-year international graduate student, said changes in U.S. visa policy made in the face of the attacks would likely affect some of Princeton's international students.

One such difficulty that he noted may be a new policy with a 30-day limit for foreign visitors. In the past, such visitors were allowed to stay in the United States for up to six months.

"It is very hard for many parents to get a visa to visit us here, so when they come, we hope they can stay longer than thirty days," Man said. "That will be very tough for all the international students, especially when we are too busy to go home to visit them [our parents]."

Even in the face of the government's policy changes, University students seem unworried by the presence of foreigners in their classrooms and dormitories.

Although Lodaya mentioned hearing about several instances of students making anti-foreigner comments, she said the University overall is not a place where international students are frequently targeted for harassment or violence because of their nationality.

"You won't ever see an international kid lynched or something because they're from Afghanistan," Lodaya said.

The goals of ISAP on campus include both catering to the needs of international students and including American students in their events, Lodaya said. Tomorrow ISAP will host a Greek study break featuring Greek food and selections from the Tigressions a-cappella group.

"[ISAP] is basically a gathering point for international students, a way for them to touch base with other international kids and retain their sense of diversity," she added.

"It's also a way for interested Americans to explore the international side of Princeton," she said.