Some international students take a class called English Online, taught by Professor Mollie McOwen. Photo by J. Gregory Schupak.

Miles away from home: Program helps international students adjust to life in U.S.

Most everyone can empathize with the nervous feeling of starting school in a new place. Remember the first day of high school?

Now imagine that experience compounded with being in a new country.

International students are facing and overcoming these challenges with the help of the Center for International Programs, an organization that brings foreign students to Marshall and offers them an educational experience in a new culture.

"The Center for International Programs was started in 1993," said Dr. William Edwards, executive director of the Center for International Programs. "Before, there were international students here, but there was not a concerted effort to bring students," he said.

The center offers many programs for international students, including English as a Second Language (ESL), which has been operating for six years. Edwards said this program was created so students with the proper academic credentials who lack proficiency in English could come to Marshall, gain adequacy in the language and eventually enroll.

Another program the center offers is an exchange program, where Marshall literally trades its own students for those from other countries for a semester or longer.

"What the exchange does is allow students to have a first-hand understanding of what another country is like," Edwards said.

Although no data was available, Edwards estimates that there are more than 400 international students on campus this year. When the program began, there were only 84.

Inversely, there were 24 Marshall students studying abroad when the program started. Edwards estimated that more than 100 were abroad this semester.

While the number of international students continues to increase, one question arises: How do foreign students hear about Marshall?

"One of the best salesmen is a person who went to Marshall," Edwards said. "We get a lot of word of mouth."

The Center for International Programs uses several marketing tools to attract students to campus.

Edwards said the center uses the Internet heavily to recruit students, and that the international program was the first at Marshall to have online applications.

The center places advertisements in student publications in other countries, but Edwards said using recruiters is one of the better strategies for getting students.

"This summer, we got a special grant from the president and we had students to help do recruiting in Columbia," Edwards said.

Although Marshall's international students come from a wide range of locations, the center has established special relationships with certain schools in other countries, such as Anglia University in England.

Edwards said Marshall also has relationships with two Chinese schools, Henan (pronounced Her-nan) College in Zhengzhou and Hunan Medical College in Changsha.

Once foreign students decide to come to Marshall, they have several options for how long they want to stay and what they want to do academically.

"We have exchanges, where the students normally come for a semester or year," Edwards said.

"That means they're here as a transient student," he said.

"We have direct recruitment, where the student comes here to get their bachelor's or master's degree. Then of course, we have the ESL program."

There are currently students from 25 countries enrolled at Marshall, although Edwards said the majority of international students are from China and Japan.

So what do international students think about Marshall?

"It's nice, said Francisco Gomez, an undergraduate business major from Los Andes, Colombia. "I came to learn English and study."

Wayan Mastriyana, a graduate geography major from Bali, Indonesia, said he decided to come to Marshall after he met an exchange student.

"You had to fight for one computer at home," Mastriyana said. "Marshall is challenging, but good."

For more information about the Center for International Programs, call the office at 696-2379 or visit the Web site at www.marshall.edu:80/cip/ intro/.