At first, Coralis Rodriguez, a junior in architecture, couldn’t feel her hands. Once she came home though, she started to scream in pain.

“The blood rushed back into my numb fingers and they hurt so much. It was horrible,” Rodriguez said. ”I couldn’t even feel my toes at one point and I was inside a bus.”

Rodriguez and many other international students at ISU were struggling with the sub-zero temperatures and the -45 degrees Fahrenheit wind chill in Ames last week.

“I didn’t know it would be that cold, so I didn’t have my coat with me, I just had a leather jacket,” Rodriguez said. “Normally I adapt to foreign temperatures pretty quickly, but this was just brutal.”

Cold temperatures can be an issue for international students, especially for those who come from very warm climate countries, said James Dorsett, director of the international students and scholars department.

“Occasionally, I’ve heard about students who don’t go to class in the morning in the winter and even suffer from depression during that time. That makes their feelings of homesickness even worse.”

Dorsett said that, as he introduced himself to the new international students, he repeatedly re-emphasized the weather conditions in Ames and gave them the advice not to underestimate it.

He said he was pleased to see that most of the new international students were dressed appropriately. “They wore large and warm coats, gloves, multiple layers and so on. They came prepared.”

A lot of students are slow to adapt to colder weather and tend to wear shorts and T-shirts as long as they possibly can, Dorsett said. “International students pick up on this kind of behavior.”

Kesi Shankar, freshman in computer engineering, comes from India. She said that she was absolutely not used to temperatures like these.

“I knew that it was going to be cold, so I brought my warmest jacket, but last week was way too extreme for me,” Shankar said. “But I have no other choice than to get used to it as fast as possible and hope for warm summers.”

New international students had to be on campus for orientation on Jan. 13 — the coldest day of the year so far.

“It was the worst, because we kept walking from building to building and it was just uncomfortable to be outside,” said Grace Gunawan, junior in chemical engineering from Indonesia. “My face hurt and I didn’t want to be outside at all, but it was required.”

For orientation, the university decided to have as much as possible take place in the Memorial Union, Dorsett said.

“We transported students to other buildings with a van, so that they spent as little time out in the cold as possible,” Dorsett said.

As a student from Kenya, this is the coldest he has ever been in his life, said Timi Koya, freshman in biological systems engineering. “I’m from a very hot part of the world, so this is just blowing my mind.”

Koya said that the hardest part for him was finding the right busses. “I’m not used to the bus system here, so walking around looking for the bus stops in the cold was really hard for me.”

Dorsett advises international students to get in the habit of checking the weather before leaving their houses, perhaps by a phone app, as well as dressing in layers.

“The facts are: We are in Iowa and it can get really, really cold here. You can’t just ignore it, you have to be prepared for it, but if you use some fairly common sense precautions you should be okay,” Dorsett said.

Rodriguez said she just stayed inside for the rest of the last week.

“I should seriously consider moving to a warmer country than this once I graduate. This is insane.”