NEW STUDENTS WORK TO ADJUST CULTURALLY ON CAMPUS

JULIANA PELAEZ, CULTURE & DIVERSITY EDITOR

Each school year students move to Wartburg College’s campus from across the United States, as well as around the world. “I talk to a lot of students the first few weeks and try to understand what they perceive the United States is going to be like before they came to the country,” Zarul Amin, director of international student services, said. “A lot of times the struggle they go through is the understanding of the language.

They can speak English pretty well, but the way we speak might be a little different than what they speak.” Although international students have courses to learn English, as Amin discusses it can still be a shock to hear domestic students speak casually in conversations.

“The other culture shocks would be to transportation because this is a rural area. Once they arrive they realize they are stuck here. I mean it happens to domestic students as well,” Amin said. “We have a variety of food, but a lot of times students struggle with the healthy options, and I’m sure this is true with all students.”

Although students on campus are allowed to bring a vehicle, it is not common for international students to do so. Students then have to depend on peers in order to be able to travel to places. Previously the U-Haul Car Share was an option but it has been removed for this academic year, as announced in the Juice via email.

From a multicultural student perspective, Yusra Malik, a thirdyear student from Plainfield, Illinois, has been in the midst of both the domestic and international student background.

Malik is a multicultural student from a metropolitan area as the current president of International Club. “I guess the close mindedness was something that I wasn’t aware of like everyone from Plainfield,” Malik said.

“I’m not saying that people are closed minded, they just don’t know a lot because they just haven’t been around people a lot. A lot of people that have come here have only been surrounded by people that look like them for most of their life, so that was something I wasn’t used to.”