Posts Tagged ‘Achievements’
How to succeed as International Students in the USA?
Friday, August 27th, 2010Good-bye, summer — hello, school! The 2010-11 academic school year kicks off this week for most area schools.
Thousands of you from across the globe are traveling or returning to America in order to attend college or do internships. Congratulations on your achievements and first steps.
In the weeks and months to come, you will experience a wide variety of both encouraging and negative feelings, such as excitement, surprise, happiness, loss of identity, anxiety, disorientation and confusion, while facing language, academic and integration challenges. You will even sometimes feel like children.
Don’t worry. These feelings are normal. They don’t come to Stay. They come to Pass.
Be patient; your dreams will not come true overnight. But start now, and go with love and courage and confidence. It’s up to you what comes to pass, and if you keep your thoughts positive and strong: your dreams will come true. It’s just a Matter of Time.
As you might know, in 2006, I left my corporate job at HP France to move to Los Angeles as an international student. I wanted to improve my English language skills, learn about the American way of doing business and eventually start my own. More importantly, I was in search of making meaningful changes in my life in order to add value to my own existence while possibly making a positive difference in the lives of others.
My life in Los Angeles has been full of challenges, the biggest of which have been dealing with the unexpected, adjusting to my new environment and getting everything done within a time frame.
Thankfully, some great people both from my university, UCLA, and off campus taught me the skills that I needed, showed me around, helped me adjust to the American culture, and inspired me. Some also provided me knowledge and methods for a better understanding of the ins- and- outs of running a business in this country, encouraged me to challenge the conventional thinking, and helped me discover and articulate my greater purpose.
I am here today to share with you some my insights.
To reach your goals in the United States, I believe it’s important to:
- Believe in yourself
- Discover your driving motivation for action (purpose, cause or belief)
- Be disciplined and Stay on your chosen path
- Remain active
- Stay focused than to sit around complaining
- Speak up and Take Actions
- Take risks and be willing to lose yourself before reaping the fruits of your efforts
- Build your Network. “Your Network Determines Your Net Worth”
- Have an insatiable thirst for knowledge
- Be able to articulate clearly your value proposition
- Sharpen your personal brand to achieve career success
- Get out of your comfort zone
-Master Team working skills
- Familiarize yourself with the American business environment
- Challenge others and yourself to get results
- Don’t settle for anything less than your best
- Develop and master your capacity to think critically and independently
- Develop and master your ability to understand how people of different cultures and values think and behave
- Develop your communication skills
- Develop a global mindset
- Immerse yourself into the American Culture
- Volunteer into your communities
- Think out of the box
- Learn how to understand the greater context of problems
- Be intensely curious
- Accept others as they come
- Look at everything as an amazing learning experience
- See the opportunity in every difficulty
- Share your experience with others
- Be concerned with time limitations
- Listen up
- Read as much as you can –pick up books that you like, books you don’t like and books you never pictured yourself reading.
- Gain control over all the tasks and commitments that you need or want to get done
- Keep track of your goals
- Be accountable for your actions
- Have a stubborn insistence on pursuing our dreams.
Over all, it’s about maintaining a good life balance with the seven following building blocks :
1-Peace of Mind
2- Health and Fitness
3- Loving relationship
4- Control of my finance
5- Career goals that fit my personality
6- Pursuing my ultimate life goals
7- Life Balance (Career, Personal relationship, Friends and Family, Spiritual, Continuing education, Rest, Health and Fitness, Relaxation, Fun)
Finally, I will leave you with this quote that I learned from my mentor, Les Brown.
“If you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace and your sleep for it … if all that you dream and scheme is about it, and life seems useless and worthless without it … if you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it and lose all your terror of the opposition for it … if you simply go after that thing you want with all of your capacity, strength and sagacity, faith, hope and confidence and stern pertinacity … if neither cold, poverty, famine, nor gout, sickness nor pain, of body and brain, can keep you away from thing that you want … if dogged and grim you beseech and beset it, with the help of God, you WILL get it!” Written by author Berton Braley
Source : Les Brown – Live your Dreams. Click here to Listen to Les Brown.
Best Wishes,
Jean-Marc Dedeyne
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