Long hours in the library and taking notes during class can be challenging for any university student, but for international students the combination of learning English and studying is particularly stressful.

Tolga Sener, sophomore in industrial engineering from Turkey, said he wasn’t accustomed to spending time working on homework and projects.

“The work I had to do for my classes was quite a bit,” he said. “In my country, you do not have any homework or assignments when you are in college.”

Abul Shuvo, president of the Bangladesh Student Association, also said it’s stressful for international students to be in an American school because English is usually not their first language.

“Students are misled easily by synonyms, the regional accents of instructors or even some hard words,” said Shuvo, junior in electrical engineering. “New students are shy and not advanced enough to raise hands and ask questions about the part they don’t follow.”

Sze-Kay Yau, senior in graphic design from Hong Kong, tape-records her instructor’s lecture, so she can listen to the lecture when she is studying. This helps her take notes when her instructors talk too fast.

“In the beginning, it was very hard,” Yau said. “I wouldn’t talk to anyone because I was scared they wouldn’t understand what I saying.”

Gloria Cain, academic adviser in computer science, said some international students do better in math than in English classes. However, the English difficulties are problems in any class, even computer science courses.

International students may have trouble in computer programming courses because they misunderstand what the professors want, she said, and the professors may not be able to understand the program once it is handed in.

This makes studying in foreign countries very stressful for some students.

“The environment is totally different. It is strange,” Yau said. “You have to speak a totally different language, and it’s really hard.”

When international students are having troubles in their classes, they may not know where to turn for help.

Ron Jackson, staff psychologist at the Student Counseling Center, said often international students are academic stars in their home country, and it becomes a challenge when they are no longer the superior student.

“The competition is worse here, often in a different language,” he said. “It’s easy to get de-pressed when you don’t [get] the grades you are used to getting. We help students to find what the causes of the academic problems are and if their exceptions are reasonable.”

When international students do get depressed about the academic performance, Jackson said it’s much harder for them because they don’t have the support system of family. About 5 percent of the counseling service’s clients are international students, he said.

“We also try to be a support system for them,” he said. “They have [the] same type of problems American students have. They have to deal with stress and academic pressure.”