Visible and Invisible Issues Faced by International Students in US Colleges

This article discusses the visible and invisible issues faced by international students in US colleges, with a focus on the case of a Chinese student at Queens College. It includes an interview with the student, who discusses the issues he faced and the departments that helped him overcome them. The article also provides a plan for other institutions to follow in order to help international students overcome cultural differences and academic challenges.

Running head: BUSINESS ETHICS
Business Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction:
In the modern society, it is seen that the parents are getting significantly demanding
towards their children regarding the studies and education of them. The majority of the
modern day parents are observed to put their kids to the schools at a significantly small ages.
This significantly creates a negative impression on the children as his or her proper
upbringing gets affected, not in terms of studies rather in terms of the natural or usual
upbringing at the child age1. Apart from this, at times the parents are observed to decide on
the choices of the studies for their children and that becomes significantly dangerous in cases
where the preferences of the children does not match with the choices selected by their
parents. This is observed to have a long lasting impact and has the potential to affect the
career and future of the children2. The paper is focused in elaborating one such case where
the student’s visible and invisible problem is discussed in taking the education from the
Queens College. The paper includes an interview of a student which discusses regarding the
issues and along with that it also identifies the concerned department which helps the student
to overcome this.
Interview:
Q. What is your name and where are you from?
Ans. Hi, this is Jack from China.
Q. Why did you came to United States?
Ans. Well, I came here to study Mathematics in the Queens College.
Q. What was your thinking behind the choice of the college?
1 Wang, Ming‐Te, and Salam Sheikh‐Khalil. "Does parental involvement matter for student achievement and
mental health in high school?." Child development 85, no. 2 (2014): 610-625.
2 Wilder, Sandra. "Effects of parental involvement on academic achievement: a meta-synthesis." Educational
Review 66, no. 3 (2014): 377-397.

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Ans. To be honest, my relatives live nearby to the college and I came from China where my
parents live till date. I had to go for the higher studies and Queens College being one of the
notable organization in proving education was at the top of the list for my selection. So I
opted it and the location of my relatives’ place was influential in the selection as well. It also
helped me to get back home early as well.
Q. What sort of issues you felt in the college?
Ans. Well, the initial days were significantly tough for me as the country was completely new
to me and in addition to that I was facing significant amount of issue in the registration and
the financial aid form fill up process as I was unable to find anyone from my family to help
me. My parents usually speak Chinese and they did not appear for the college. Hence they
were unable to help me in this case.
Apart from this I faced considerable amount of issues with the selection of the subject
as from my childhood I was incredibly passionate about Electrical and Electronics
Engineering. I used to do the repairing of the general household apparatus with significant
amount of speed and apart from that I had genuine interest on the operation of the motors,
generators along with other power electronics switches like Metal Oxide Field Effect
Transistors, Bipolar Junction Transistor or the Choppers. But with the significant amount of
influence of my relatives on my parents regarding the selection of subject for my study forced
me to take a comparatively less favoured subject which is mathematics. This was significant
in generating apathy towards my education.
Q. What are the invisible issues that you faced during your degree?
Ans. Well, it is again a problem that happened at the initial stages. I came from China to
complete my study here. Hence I was able to observe a considerable amount of cultural
differences between the Asian group and the local students. Here we were 21 students from

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the Asian regions who felt that we have some difficulty in adjusting to the nature and culture
of the people of US.
Q. Tell me about the department of the college that helped you the most in order to overcome
these challenges?
Ans. To be honest the administrative and cultural departments of the college helped us a lot
in reducing the impact of the mentioned issues. The approach of the cultural department of
the college was notably different from other colleges like the Bard College, ASA College and
Bernard College as the department were able to host cultural assimilation and bonding
development activities in order to make sure that we do not face the adverse impact of the
cultural differences. The administrative department helped us with the important inputs
regarding the official operations like the admission, registration and the financial aid form fill
ups. Apart from that, the mathematics department helped me significantly in building the
interest on the subject as I was significantly less interested on the subject.
Findings:
The visible and the invisible issues that were observed to be faced by the Chinese
student were the cultural differences and the apathy of taking mathematics as the subject for
education.
Helping Authorities:
Three departments of the college were observed to help the student in a significant
manner which were the Mathematics, Administrative and Cultural departments. Unlike any
other college or university present in that region, the office of cultural department of Queens
College was able to conduct cultural training regarding the aspects like the cultural
assimilation, language training for their students to help them overcome the cultural

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differences. Apart from that, the mathematics department conducted counselling sessions for
the student to help him gather interest on mathematics.
It will be justified to state that the other institutions in that region will be in need to
cope up with the problems mentioned above in the same way as the Queens College. The
reason is the effective planning of the Queens College such as the language training or the
cultural assimilation sessions. The training activities will be significant for the student in
order to reduce the cultural differences that he was facing in United States as the value
dimensions of both the countries are significantly different. Apart from that, the individual
issue that the student was facing was the apathy in learning Mathematics. The Queens
College has great significance in influencing their Mathematics department to host a
counselling session for the student in order to increase positive interest in him. Both the
activities were supervised by the college and other institutions are in need to follow the
method as well.
Plan:
Activities Time Span Concerned Authority Measurement of
Success
Language Training 6 months Cultural Department Be able to
understand the
language and the
accent of the student
and the teachers of
the college
Cultural 6 months Cultural Department Be able to connect

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Assimilation
Activities
(participation in
cultural
programmes,
Participation in
social events)
well with the people
of China.
Counselling
Sessions
3 months Mathematics
Department
A strong creation of
the interest on
Mathematics.
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, it can be said that the students of other countries are observed
to face the cultural differences at Queens College and the college operates in a significantly
efficient manner in solving such issues which is visible with the interview findings. The
operation of the various departments of the college in reducing the impact of such issues are
observed to be immense for the students.

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References:
Wang, Ming‐Te, and Salam Sheikh‐Khalil. "Does parental involvement matter for student
achievement and mental health in high school?." Child development 85, no. 2 (2014): 610-
625.
Wilder, Sandra. "Effects of parental involvement on academic achievement: a meta-
synthesis." Educational Review 66, no. 3 (2014): 377-397.

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C. Bradley-Geist, Jill, and Julie B. Olson-Buchanan. "Helicopter parents: An examination of
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Karbach, Julia, Juliana Gottschling, Marion Spengler, Katrin Hegewald, and Frank M.
Spinath. "Parental involvement and general cognitive ability as predictors of domain-specific
academic achievement in early adolescence." Learning and Instruction 23 (2013): 43-51.
qc.cuny.edu (2018). "Home". 2018. Qc.Cuny.Edu.
https://www.qc.cuny.edu/academics/degrees/dmns/math/Pages/default.aspx.