Life in an unknown country can be lonely and intimidating.

Chris Yang, a freshman from China, experienced this first-hand when he traveled alone to the United States for the first time in August.

“I came to the country by myself, checked into the dorm by myself, registered classes and went to classes by myself,” Yang said. “I don’t have an outgoing personality. I find it challenging to make friends in a foreign country.”

Yang is one of the 3,691 international students enrolled at Iowa State for the fall of 2018. Most international students face unique challenges when they come to the United States for the first time, especially those who are from countries where English is not the official language.

“I need to push himself out of his comfort zone; otherwise the loneliness will eventually get to me,” Yang said. “My English is not proficiency enough for me to talk to domestic students and be friends with them. I often stutter or simply don’t know what to say. I think CSSA [Chinese Students and Scholars Association] is a good choice for me since people there speak my language, and we share the similar cultural background.”

Different social norms and lifestyle also cause challenges for international freshman. One of the hardest challenges they deal with is homesickness.

Khum Yan Chew, junior in culinary food science, is a transfer student from Malaysia. She arrived in Ames three weeks ago.

“For the first time in my life, I’m alone in a country,” Chew said. “At home, when something happens, I always have my parents as my emotional support. Even though sometimes I don’t talk to them, their presence is enough to comfort me.”

Although she is not in the same country as her parents, Chew came to Iowa State with some of her friends from Malaysia who help her feel less alone.

“I consider myself lucky because, without my friends, I had to do all the explore by myself, like taking the bus, getting to know the school buildings and going out to eat,” Chew said. “I can see that would be truly scary, to say the least.”

Chew said she did almost all the preparation prior to coming to Iowa State by herself, such as what essentials she needed to bring, the expectations of a foreign freshman and the basic information about Ames.

“The school did a good job at preparing students when they arrived, like the orientation,” Chew said. “But I think they need to put more effort on helping international students before they plan their trip to America.”

Krista McCallum Beatty, director of the International Students and Scholars Office [ISSO,] said ISSO has put out new programs and renovated old ones to help international students accommodate to their new environment.

“We remodeled our undergraduate orientation program which we assigned students and orientation leaders by their major, so they can meet other international students with the same career goals and get advice from somebody who understands their major,” McCallum Beatty said.

ISSO also arranged multiple social events and group trips for new international first-year students. A group of 150 international students took a trip to the Iowa State Fair with several ISSO workers a few days before classes began.

“We want every international student to feel welcomed,” McCallum Beatty said. “ISSO has many services and functions for them.”

Yingqi Huang, international alumna who graduated this summer, said she came to Iowa State in 2013 and didn’t even know ISSO existed during her first year in college.

“I just knew there is a place named ISSO, and it had something to do with international students,” Huang said. “I received their email every week but never read them carefully. I just clicked them open just for the sake of it.”

Huang said she was struggling in all her classes for the first year, and her grades were “too terrible to even look at,” so she started to seek help and found out about ISSO who helped her a lot after her freshman year.

“ISSO is a great place for international students to visit,” Huang said. “The thing is, they wait for students to come to them instead of introducing themselves to the students.”

McCallum Beatty said there is a relatively new program that requires all international students to an international first-year experience course.

The semester-long course teaches new international students information they need to know about the school and the state of Iowa. McCallum Beatty is one of the guest speakers in the course. 

“I let the students know all about ISSO and the things we do. So I do feel a little bit sad some of our alumni didn’t get to experience the full ISSO. But we are trying to do better every year,” McCallum Beatty said.