Starting at a new high school can be tough for any kid, but for new immigrants and refugees it can be even harder.

Brooklyn’s International High School is a public school for recent immigrants. Some of its students have trekked across deserts or fled war and persecution to get to the U.S., and many start their first day of school speaking little or no English.

Journalist Brooke Hauser spent months following the students at International High. She’s recorded their stories in a new book, The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens.

NPR’s Neal Conan speaks with Hauser and Dariana Castro, coordinator of special programs at the school. Read more

By Inside Higher ED

April 6, 2011

Dozens of student affairs officials turned up for a session last week at the American College Personnel Association’s annual convention, where survey results from eight American colleges showed that many international students — despite becoming a larger presence on campuses every year — still struggle with discrimination and are unsatisfied by the degree to which student services helped them make the transition to the cultural and educational systems of the United States.

Peter Mather, an Ohio University assistant professor of higher education and student affairs, and a recent Ohio doctoral graduate, Bethany Schweitzer, along with Gunter Morson, head of higher education and careers at England’s CATS College, set out to understand international students’ process of applying to universities abroad, as well as their expectations for college and how their initial expectations compared with their actual experience when they got here. Another focus was how student services assisted this population in their process of adjusting to American college life.

The researchers invited 100 colleges of differing size, location and public/private status to take part in the survey, but only eight volunteered, with 73 participating international students representing 32 countries. While Schweitzer, Mather and Morson are still conducting follow-up interviews to get more details about the reasoning behind students’ responses, they took a break to present their findings to date at the ACPA convention.

“When we started the process, we hoped our findings would help student affairs professionals understand the international student,” Schweitzer said in an e-mail interview. Among the main issues students face, the survey found, are social and academic adjustment, isolation, racial climate and political ideology. (The crowd at the ACPA session had a good laugh over one student’s response that the biggest adjustment to life in the United States has been “Republicans.”) They also frequently mentioned unfamiliar food, the weather, and capitalism; many Asian students, in particular, were troubled by the cold weather in the Northeast. Continue reading here

We also believe that many international students and foreign exchange visitors to the United States 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. However, not all of them are lucky enough to receive the same attention, care and consideration — helping them to improve their experience, develops a better understanding of people of different backgrounds, or even get the tools needed to realize their dreams. For those people, we founded “U in the USA”. You want to know why we do what we do, how we do it and what we do, please contact us here.

Jihye, Nareg, Alex and Sadia, international students and bloggers at VOA Student Union, were interviewed on Upfront Africa about what it’s like to study in America and about blogging for the Student Union!

Listen to the interview here

If you are coming to the U.S. on a student visa it can be a bit of a challenge and a somewhat tedious process. VOA’s Lisa Vohra talks to a couple of students from Africa who have been through it and has this report.

Watch the stories of two young African students who are busy taking classes and living their lives in the U.S.

If you want to study in the USA, this is the first thing to : meet with an advisor from EducationUSA. It’s your official source on U.S. Higher Education. You will find centers in your own countries here.

For tips and access to local information specific to your projects, please contact us here

What is the most important to you about studying in the the U.S and why do you care?

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.

Not only was coming to the U.S. difficult, but once I arrived, I experienced 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. I sometimes felt like a child.

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 believe that the majority of international students and foreign exchange visitors to the United States face the same challenges. However, not all of them are lucky enough to receive the same attention, care and consideration — helping them to improve their experience, develops a better understanding of people of different backgrounds, or even get the tools needed to realize their dreams. For those people, I founded “U in the USA”.

In brief, our mission is to simplify international students’ and foreign exchange visitors’ lives, to help them interact more effectively with Americans, and to assist them in achieving their goals.  We also try to encourage them to take advantage of this program to create connections and even make lifelong friends.

To learn more about what we do, and how we do it, please visit us  www.uintheusa.com or contact us at www.facebook.com/uintheusa

Jean-Marc Dedeyne

President and Founder of U in the USA

Tel : 1-800-464-7681

Coordinating trips with friends can be a difficult endeavor, given conflicts in work schedules, budgets and destination preferences. But if you’re not too particular about who you travel with — or if you’d like to make some new friends — you might want to check out Globetrooper while planning your next trip.

Globetrooper is a social platform for aspiring travelers to design trips and find others to travel with them. You can post a trip outlining your dates and preferences for others to join, or browse the roughly 100 trips already listed on the site. Users can also leave comments on each others’ trips with suggestions for places to stay and sites to see. Trips are ranked by Difficulty, Culture Shock, Remoteness and Risk on a scale of 1-5.  Find your Travel Mate here

Travel with me here

Source : Mashable