While many ISU students lie by the pool, visit snow cone stands and attend barbecues, ISU international students face different prospects.

James Dorsett, the director of International Students and Scholars, said that most international students go home for the summer.

“If they weren’t going to take classes or they couldn’t get a job, even flying home is cheaper than sitting here paying rent for three months, maybe,” Dorsett said.

Many international students may already have a good job at home, or they have responsibilities with their families they need to fulfill.

Dorsett said it is more likely for freshman and sophomores to travel back home for the summer. Older international students tend to stay in the United States during the summer.

“The longer a student has been here the greater the likelihood is that they will stay during the summer because they would be more likely to have a job or internship already or they fell comfortable here,” Dorsett said.

For the students who do stay, the International Students and Scholars Office still hosts a few activities during the summer.  In the past they’ve done shopping trips to Des Moines, the occasional picnic and a white water rafting trip.

“If they don’t go home, they are staying to either take classes, here doing internships, they’re working on campus, or they’re lucky enough to have good friends, and for a few weeks they spend time with them visiting family or the Grand Canyon or things similar to what American students do,” Dorsett said.

Shuyang Sun, freshman in computer science from Xuchang, China, is one of the international students who will stay in Ames during the summer to take classes.

Sun said he is looking forward to fewer students on campus so he can use the gym and have few distractions while studying this summer. 

“There are a few things I miss about home,” Sun said. “The first is my dog and the food. Then like my grandparents. My parents will come here next summer.”

Sun said some of the traditional summer pastimes in China included going to the pool and playing badminton.

“In China we only have a month vacation, so we don’t do a lot, but if I have free time I’ll take a tour or something,” Sun said. “I think if I have time and I don’t decide to take a summer semester and I’m not an intern, I’ll go to Europe.” 

Charles Chimezie, freshman in chemical engineering from southwestern Nigeria, will also be staying on-campus to take summer classes.

A large part of Chimezie’s usual summer pastime includes traveling.

“Almost every summer I go to New York. I’ve been to San Francisco, California and Maryland during the summer just to travel, and I have family in those places. Normally I just hang out with my friends and family and just chill,” Chimezie said.

Dorsett stressed that international students should be careful which classes they choose to take.

“For new international students, and their English has been good enough for their classes, now they’re in summer school,” Dorsett said. “All that reading they were able to manage in regular classes, it now gets scrunched down to one day. For an international student that can be tough.”