More than 3,000 international students from more than 100 foreign countries choose to further their education at Iowa State. After a three-day orientation, international students are expected to fully understand everything about Iowa State and its resources, American culture and their responsibilities as a student.

In order to alleviate confusion, the International Students and Scholars Office has decided to implement a semester-long course beginning in the fall of 2015 for international students focusing on giving students a more in-depth look at everything that would be covered in the three-day orientation.

James Dorsett, director of the International Students and Scholars Office, has been working diligently with the International Student Advisory Board and Sarah Davis, coordinator of an ESL advanced writing class, to develop a curriculum for the new course.

“The idea came from a combination of things. One is a feeling from our people in our office that our orientation program was not really covering all of the information that we wanted to cover with our students,” Dorsett said.

In addition to the classroom curriculum that will be taught, Davis is constructing online interactive modules, which international students will have access to and will be able to use to learn about American culture and classroom expectations prior to arriving at Iowa State.

The modules will give international students the opportunity to learn basic educational necessities, such as formatting emails and reading a syllabus. The modules contain videos from ISU students discussing their experiences and can be viewed in English or a variety of other target languages.

“You can’t tell them ‘this is where you find this stuff,’ you have to train them more about why and how we do it and why and how it might be difficult to adjust to it and give them opportunities to practice these skills,” Davis said.

Prior to this course, international students have not been required to fulfill an international perspectives requirement. By adding this course, international students will now be required to pass an international perspectives course whether it is tailored to American culture or another approved course from the list.

“We just focus on that global perspectives class for the native speakers, but how are we developing the global perspectives of the international students? This course is to be the compliment for the international students,” Davis said.

Senior Presha Kardile is an international student from India and the chairwoman of the International Student Advisory Board. The advisory board works alongside the International Students and Scholars Office to educate international students on American culture, as well as addressing international student issues.

Kardile said that the new course has been arranged for one specific topic to be discussed weekly in a large lecture with a recitation session the same week. The course will also give international students the opportunity to interact with American students who will lead the course’s recitation sessions.

“A huge part of it is interaction with American students. That’s something that international students do struggle with,” Kardile said.

International students face a variety of challenges upon arriving to the United States. One of the biggest challenges is the language barrier.

“[International students] have been studying [English] for 12 years — some of them — and this is the first time that they’ve had to use [English] to survive,” Davis said. “It’s the first time they are completely removed from any crutch of their home language.”

Due to strong differences in culture, some international students may also struggle to integrate within American culture.

“Even though many international students have perhaps had a lot of exposure to American culture through TV and movies and music videos and books, that doesn’t necessarily cover what is expected of them in college,” Dorsett said.

Although international students may face a variety of struggles, this course will be set in place in order to eliminate some of the academic challenges that so many of them face.

“We hope that this [course] will help them to have a better understanding of the resources that are available on campus, both [from an] academic standpoint and student support. Also, that they will be in a position to better understand academic things required of them in the classroom.” Dorsett said.