Adjusting to America

When Chern Han Lim ’11 arrived on campus, adjusting to the American education routine of homework and class participation was jarring.

At his local high school in Malaysia, Lim had been on the British track, in which course grades were based almost solely on exams. “I wasn’t used to working hard. I could just afford to slack off the entire semester and cram before exams,” he explained.

The result: “I did extremely badly freshman year,” he said.

But over the last few years, his academic concerns have eased. “I think I’m one of the few whose GPA has gone up a lot,” he said. “I know how to study better. I know what to study. That helped a lot. Time heals everything.”

But adjusting to American culture has been less straightforward. In high school, classes were taught in Malay, and roughly 95 percent of students — along with the vast majority of professors — were Malaysian citizens of Chinese descent. Lim said he faced a culture shock when coming to campus. “I’m very much the ‘typical Malaysian’ in the sense that I’m not Americanized,” Lim explained. “Malaysia’s more a salad bowl than a melting pot.”

Lim is not alone among international students, as others echoed his concerns about adjusting to social life on campus. While the extent of their struggle varies based on their high school experiences — just as it does for American students — international students must confront the challenge of adjusting not only to Princeton’s social scene, but to an American lifestyle as well.

The high school divide

Like Lim, Toral Ramaiya ’11 went to high school in a country far removed from American society: Tanzania. But because she attended the International School of Tanganyika, where classes were taught in English by teachers of various ethnicities, her transition to Princeton was relatively smooth. “I feel like I had a lot of exposure to different cultures,” she said.

International students interviewed for this article drew a distinction between local high schools and international schools like United World College. Students from local schools may face a steeper transition in adjusting to campus life because they rarely experienced other cultures and few high school classes were taught in English.

“Princeton accepts international students who aren’t really international,” Lim said. “I am from a local school in Malaysia, so that probably made [the transition] even harder. The rest are international school or private school kids. A lot of us are very much Americanized.”

Corina Panda ’11, who attended Moise Nicoara National College, a public school in Romania, said that her cultural adjustment was also difficult because her classes were taught in Romanian and the student body wasn’t very diverse. “I had rarely seen people of different cultures back home; I didn’t really interact with students of different cultures until college,” she explained, adding that she believes students from international schools do not face this problem.

But several administrators said that they could not generalize about international students from different types of high schools.

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“There are a number of U.S. and non-U.S. citizens who went to international and American schools overseas. However, that is not the majority,” said Rachel Baldwin, associate dean of undergraduate students, who oversees issues related to international students.

“Regardless of the type of school they attended, living overseas and being immersed in another culture, in my opinion, makes you a ‘true’ international student,” she said.

International students form roughly 10 percent of the admitted class each year.

“Every student is different,” University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 said, noting that “one of the lessons that we take away is to be careful about generalizations.”

Cross-cultural friendships

Despite their different backgrounds, international students interviewed identified an altered meaning of friendship as a common challenge to studying at Princeton.

“It’s not the sense of friendship you have been used to,” Panda explained. “At home, if you’re friends, you’re really close friends. Here you have a lot of friends, and you’re not that close.”

Avital Hazony ’12, who grew up in Israel, characterized Princeton students as “very friendly and very nice, but less willing to make commitments to their friends.”

“They’re very busy figuring out what they’re trying to do and achieving their goals,” she said, noting that in Israel, “You feel like people are being real. Here you can always bank on people being nice, but you wonder if they would be a constant friend.”

Lim said that he only has one friend at the University that he can confide in — his best friend from Malaysia, a sophomore, who has known since he was 13 years old.

For a variety of reasons, international students said they often gravitate toward other internationals, especially those from their home country.

“I feel like we connect more because Americans have a lot in common,” Ramaiya said. “We connect on the fact that we don’t have those things in common.”

Additionally, Hazony explained that she connects with other international students because they all made the decision to go abroad for college. “It takes a lot to leave your country, so we can have an interesting conversation,” she said. “For an American to come to Princeton, it’s hard work — but it’s in the plan. For a lot of international students, they had to think about it for themselves.”

Jingwen Du ’13, president of the International Consortium, noted, “Most international students must make an extra effort to actively seek out cultural events, which act as social supports and as ways to keep in touch with the students’ own cultural identities.” Through these events, international students meet other students from their home country, which may further their friendships with students from their own culture.

While it is important for many international students to maintain a connection with their countries, Lim explained that he believes the tendency to associate with only internationals is not “particularly healthy.”

“We should make American friends and know this culture,” Panda said. “I think it’s better to develop your personality by meeting new people.”

Alcohol and the Street

Not only is the meaning of friendship different at Princeton, but the way friends spend time together is also new for many international students. With the social scene dominated by the eating clubs, the alcohol culture at Princeton is often difficult to adapt to.

“Most of the internationals have already been legal in their country,” Ramaiya explained. “I’ve been drinking since I’ve been 18. All of a sudden I come to the U.S., and I’m no longer legal. People are binge drinking. It seems very ‘high school.’ ”

Baldwin said that encountering the new legal restriction may be disorienting for international students. “Navigating the social scene may be a challenge for some students, since some were legally able to consume alcohol prior to coming to Princeton, while others may come from more socially conservative cultures,” she explained.

Because of this, some international students do not find the Street appealing. “It’s pretty much a Western thing,” Lim explained.

Several international students noted that an eating club was too costly for them to join. But, Lim said, “Even if it was free, I wouldn’t join an eating club.”

Lower interest in eating clubs is reflected by the numbers. Though they comprised 8 percent of the Class of 2009, international students only represented 5 percent of students in sign-in clubs and 4 percent of students in bicker clubs, Durkee said.

Selcuk Arkun ’10, a native of Turkey who is a member of Cap & Gown Club, said that the decision to join a club is often based on one’s friend group. “As an international student you tend to get to know other international students, and you might form your core friend group earlier on. If that core friend group doesn’t want to get involved in the Street, I could see you not becoming involved in it,” he said.

Isabel Pike ’11, who attended the International School of Uganda, said that she chose to join Ivy Club in part to immerse herself in American culture.

“I thought that since I was in America, I might as well embrace it,” she said. “That international scene is more what I grew up with in high school, and I was looking for something different. I just felt like I should embrace being here.”

Durkee, who chairs the Eating Club Task Force established last September, said that the task force has investigated international students’ involvement in the eating clubs. “We learned that one of the things we don’t do very well is orient international students to the clubs, particularly to the many aspects of club life that don’t have anything to do with parties,” he said. “There are other aspects that may be very appealing to international students. They might be interested in joining if they learned more about them.”

Institutional support

Though students said that confronting the challenges associated with coming from an international background has been rewarding, more nuanced University support may be lacking.

Currently, the University does not have any programs that specifically address the needs of international students from local high schools, Baldwin said, though she added that the international pre-orientation program aims to ease the transition for all international students.

Lim explained that he believes the University should also assign international upperclassmen to advise freshmen from the same country. “I lack a mentor,” he said. “If I had that one elderly figure, he or she would’ve helped me. If you’re friends, it’s easier to learn.” He added that he has tried to be a mentor himself for incoming students from Malaysia.

Despite the difficulties, Lim said that adjusting to campus culture has been a “really good learning experience.”

“The thing I learned most at Princeton is how to learn independently and how to deal with things on your own,” he said. “I wouldn’t have expanded my social circle [if I hadn’t come to Princeton]. Here I have to do it.”