Winter break is coming up, and for many international students at Iowa State, that means an opportunity to go back to their home country and be with their families.

“I do know that most international students […] probably don’t go home just because of the fact that flight tickets are really expensive, so they can’t go home for like a week between the Thanksgiving breaks and the spring breaks that we get, so they take the time off during actual winter break to go home, because obviously three weeks is quite a bit of time,” said Rahul Namboori, senior in management information systems.

Namboori said he doesn’t usually go home to India during Thanksgiving, and in past years he has looked forward to going home to spend Christmas with his family.

“I really enjoyed going back home just because it gives me a chance to see my family,” Namboori said. “Our family goes to church every Christmas, that’s just one thing we’ve done for a long time, even though we’re not Christians. We don’t necessarily pray or anything like that, but we just watch [the ceremony]. We usually invite all the families in the neighborhood to eat a nice dinner that my mom usually makes, or like a group of moms get together and make.”

Though the break allows many undergraduates to travel home, most graduate students end up staying on campus, according to Namboori. They continue their graduate work and academic studies over break, which is similar to what Namboori plans to do this year.

“I will be staying in Ames, my [Graduate Record Examinations] are coming up so that’s one thing that I can focus on is just studying during break,” Namboori said. “I’m in my senior year, so I’ll probably be applying for internships and jobs and grad school, stuff like that. That’s the only time of the year where there’s absolutely no responsibilities, so I can work on that.”

Madesh Samanu, sophomore in computer science, is from Tripoli in southern India. He said he plans on staying on campus over winter break, but during his freshman year he had an opportunity to spend the holidays with a friend who invited him to their home in Lamars, Iowa.

“I got to experience a lot of cultural things, like the traditions of Iowa, how people celebrate the Christmas over here,” Samanu said. “It’s somewhat different than how we celebrate Christmas in India. Since I don’t eat meat, [my friend’s] mom used to make me mashed potatoes and broccoli. I also celebrated my birthday in his home. My birthday is right after the Christmas, so his mom made me a cake.”

Some international students who stay on campus celebrate the holidays together, according to Samanu.

“This time, I’m planning to do some research work, and I’m still doing my coursework, but at the same time I’m trying to meet a lot of people in Towers,” Samanu said. “Towers is one of the few places in Iowa State where it’s open during the winter. So there are a lot of international students you can meet. For this Thanksgiving break, we played board games, we had a movie night and we shared some food. So we’re planning to do the same for winter break.”

International students travel immense distances to study at Iowa State and often spend a very long time away from their families, friends and home.

“I’d say just staying away from home takes a huge toll on people, especially international students, so they probably go home whatever chance they can get,” said Namboori. “Considering Ames is also a pretty small town, there’s not much you can do staying here, so if people do stay here they probably travel to different cities outside of Ames. I know a lot of my friends, they went to go see New York City and Atlanta, a couple of different spots during break.”