It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency:
Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace
Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed)
Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification)
Level 4: Can do all of the above passively, being able to pick up valuable information just by overhearing conversation without focused metal effort
Level 5: Ability to do all of the above in a noisy and hectic situation (like a party, sporting event, etc)
It's really, really hard to make good friends without getting to Level 4 or 5. I work with many people for whom English is a second language. At work they don't miss a beat and are great teammates. But it can fall apart in a social setting. Once there are 5 overlapping streams of conversation stuffed full of cultural references these coworkers of mine very frequently lose track of the conversation and become quieter and quieter over time.
I bet you'd find that this 40% number is much different for students studying abroad in a country where their native language is common. My US friends who moved to the UK or Australia had no problem making friends.
I'm not convinced that language is actually such an essential aspect. Cultural similarity seems like a much bigger one.
For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even after controlling for English levels.
By now I have probably spent 1000 hours learning (as part of a formal process), reading, listening, writing and speaking English. Probably a lot more, but let's go with that estimate. The actual language learning part was probably 20%, the rest was acquiring cultural references.
I'm trying to do the same for French, where I'm probably around level 2 or 3, and damn, I had forgotten how long it takes to "load the cart".
In my opinion, native speakers actually "become" "native" in a lesser degree because they were born to parents speaking that language and in a higher degree because they went through school in that language. All the basic lessons at school that everybody learns, all those initial social interactions, day in, day out, in the language they will use for the rest of the life.
It's a lot harder to squeeze those in later on, especially since the interlocutors become less and less accommodating.
It's not just raw skill but fatigue from the mental exertion of using a foreign language all day. You take classes in a foreign language all day and it's very hard to spend the evening hours also exerting yourself linguistically. I can empathize with the desire to just take it easy using your native tongue after a long day of keeping up with academics in a non native language.
'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.' - H. L. Mencken
American society is massively socially segregated by race and class, more so than in many other countries. I can form friendships with people with zero language in common, but it took me several years in the US to build a community of American friends despite being a native English speaker and a highly literate one at that.
Although this could be a factor, I have to disagree on this. Before any foreign student is given admission to an American University you need to take TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). You need this to be a high score to get admitted and depending on the country, you need to show this score at the American Embassy to get a student Visa. Unless it is some exchange program ALL foreign university students can speak English on a conversational level.
I am from Nigeria, where English is the National language. I grew up visiting America as a child because my parents grew up there for some portion of their lives. So even with all my linguistic advantages I still bonded more with other International students faster and better than I did with Americans (regardless of race).
I would say the issue I found was cultural, basic things like sense of humor differs. What a Nigerian finds funny is not always the same thing an American would find funny and vice versa.If you cannot laugh together, you have a problem. Same with etiquette, some things a Nigerian may do might be seen as rude to an American but a sign of love in Nigeria. The second issue I found is that Americans don't have a lot of curiosity beyond their own culture. A lot of Americans have the idea America is the best country in the world, so what could they learn from anyone else when they push the world forward, so there is a lack of interest to understand others perspectives and there is a gap.
I personally worked hard to have American friends and I have life long ones today both white,black, latino and Asian American friends but this did not come easy. This took about 10 years of open-mindedness and extroversion that was not always reciprocated.
And the best way to learn, practice and improve for the last two levels is to get involved, which means the ones need more chances are more likely to be separated from the group and this is very discouraging. Instead, babies and toddlers generally get more patient guides. That's a more important reason for adult second language learners. The general solution I can think of is to have a private coach to help them learn with feedback and correction so that learners are more likely to catch the limited chances to begin to get involved with groups. High quality chat bot could be a more affordable option for most learners, if the bot is good enough, which I'm not familiar with.
It's a bit of a catch-22 because you need a high level of interaction with native speakers to be able to get to Level 4/5, but it's intimidating and difficult to do so.
Most of the international students I've interacted that pushed through this were really, really social to begin with.
This notion is simplistic and unsupported by the article. The article mentions nothing about language proficiency and plenty about cultural adjustment, specifically about how peers and teachers interact with one another. There is a lot more cultural overlap with UK and Australia.
Similarly, I made a good number of friends who were international students by playing intramural soccer. I suppose you could say soccer is a common language.
A few comments below disagree with you, but my experience is exactly as you described it, and I am a native English speaker in Norway, where everyone speaks English (although not nearly as well as the media or the locals wold have you think). When it comes to following along at a noisy social event or when there are many conversations happening simultaneously I fall somewhere between 3 and 4 on the list. Cultural references and expressions can easily boot me from a conversation as I lose the thread and have to start thinking about the conversation instead of partaking naturally. There is little in the way of real cultural differences between the UK and Scandinavia but enough to make a person feel like an outsider. This often leads to me abandoning social interactions.
I have spent years living abroad and am utterly unconvinced by this argument.
The people who are easiest to befriend are not those with the best language skills, they are those with the same cultural (or sometimes religious) values. At least that has been a very consistent, reliable way of modelling this phenomenon of human behaviour in my travels.
A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends.
Other values around sex and relationships are more subtle but of real importance.
Further, pushing the limits of what's PC to say, the fact is many cultures have a "we need to stick together," or "we stick together to preserve our culture" attitude that ends up also drawing boundaries around social circles based on race due to culture.
Very close relationships, such as romantic relationships, on the other hand quickly approach the point where language fluency becomes absolutely necessary. But friends to do activities with on the other hand--I love it when people are speaking other languages, have different reactions and place different significance on events. It adds spice to life and opens your eyes to see other ways of viewing things the same way you always had.
Cultural norms, customs, and the fact that on many campuses, there are quite a number of foreigners, making it more difficult for the social scene to absorb.
US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture' as far as people outside the Anglosphere is concerned.
>But it can fall apart in a social setting. Once there are 5 overlapping streams of conversation stuffed full of cultural references these coworkers of mine very frequently lose track of the conversation and become quieter and quieter over time.
Hmm, this sounds exactly like me. And I'm a white American guy (obviously, English is my first and pretty much only language, unless you count the German I learned in high school where I don't even meet your level 1).
I'd say I'm at your level 4 with English. When there's too many people talking, I'm unable to discriminate. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, if the relative volumes are different enough I can (so in a bar if someone is talking into my ear and the other conversations are in the background, I can make it out though I'll ask for a lot of repeats), but my big problem is in the workplace, where people for some reason insist on carrying out multiple loud conversations in the same room, right next to each other, and seem to have no concept (unlike the bar-goers) that it's really really hard to follow one conversation when the other one is right next to you at the same volume.
Yet another reason I totally regret going into engineering and software, and wish I had gone into something else where I'd get an office.
Follow the source link and you find that 40% have no close American friends, which is different from "friends on campus". I checked the source looking for a baseline (how many domestic students have no close friends) and discovered that it was specifically about international students making friends with Americans.
> "Nearly 40 percent of the survey respondents had no close American friends and would have liked more meaningful interaction with people born here"
This is a very different result - still important, but the corrected stat and the free-response listed in the source make clear that we're looking at a different question than simple loneliness.
edit: The HN headline has been updated, which is great news. Now if only Quartz could meet the same standards...
Before I got into software development I worked for a South Korean company that helped high-level students get into American and Canadian universities.
The single biggest source of stress for myself and the other westerners working there is that the administration's (and the parents'!) only goal was to get these kids into a school, and absolutely no thought was given to acclimating them to a different culture or teaching them the skills they would need to thrive in a very different educational system and social climate.
We (the foreign teachers) would try to sneak cultural lessons in and hold extra classes about how to join campus organizations and social clubs, and we'd always get in trouble with the management because "it wasn't important".
There's a very real sense in East Asia that once you get into an American university that you'll become successful, but some of the brightest kids are coming back to their home countries with a 2.7GPA, a memory of crushing loneliness, and many tens of thousands of dollars wasted. It's a solvable problem that no one is really interested in even examining.
I'd say many expat europeans or americans in Asia (Shangai, south korea) don't make any effort in making close native friends. Many of them prefer to hang out with people from their own country, or other western people. Only a few think about "acclimating to a different culture or learn new skills they would need to thrive in a very different educational system and social climate".
I spent a year in US as a foreign student. From my previous experiences (internships in UK and Germany), I knew it would be difficult to make friends with "locals". In UK, I was in a dorm during the summer with a private room, shared bathroom and kitchen. Most people were eating in their room. I finally made friend with one british guy as he was cooking. He told me later he didn't think he would make friends during the short summer session, even less with a foreigner. His girlfriend owned a pub, I had a great summer!
In the US, I didn't realize it would be even more difficult because 90% of the students in MS are foreigners in the college I attended. Anyway, I decided that the best way to make American friends was to be with them all day long. I joined a fraternity on campus.
This was not easy. Most fraternities never had a foreign student, except the one I was accepted in. Because my english was not great, I focused all my time on 1 fraternity to increase my chances of being accepted. I was the only foreigner in all fraternities this week.
It was not always easy, but it was worth it. I joined while doing my MS, all my brothers where freshmen. We had very different work load and about 4-year difference. But I did make friends with all of them. I spent Christmas with one of my friend's family (I didn't leave the US for winter break). It was a great experience.
I'm rather an introvert. But when you travel in a foreign country, you have to talk to strangers all the time. Expectations are also lower when you don't master the language fully. You have to be very direct and explicit in your communications.
Fwiw 10 years ago I was organizing weekly dance parties in a college town. 80% of our attendance was foreign students. Nightly I would have kids from all over the world profusiosly thanking me. The bulk of the complements were in one way another "thank you so much for putting this on I feel like I'm home. I don't get American culture but I get this." 10 years later I still have people coming up to me randomly thanking me saying they've stuck around because of friends they made.
In my limited experience I feel there's a real cultural mis-match with kids from other countries coming here to study. Most of the kids I met were from huge cities and the shock of being in a small college town was in many was too much for them. That and the greek system was overtly hostile to them.
On side a note it's humorous what many kids take back with them from their time in America. It's worth doing an image search of "American party" to see what I mean.
As a former international student, the first year was incredibly lonely as I used to be a deep introvert. The article mentions some of the obstacles but perhaps one of biggest ones is being able to communicate well with Americans. I used to be incredibly anxious about buying groceries simply because I talked very fast English with a heavy accent. I could talk but not communicate; which means that I could convey facts, but I couldn't strike up a conversation with a stranger, or make a joke. I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said. And this is despite me having pretty good knowledge of English; I can only imagine how hard it must be for Chinese/Korean etc. students.
The best thing that happened to me was to get an internship in a company where my team was composed mostly of Americans. I learned how to talk slower and more importantly, slowly understood sarcasm as well. Perhaps most Americans don't realize just how much of a shared culture is needed for immigrants to understand before they can communicate effectively.
When I was in college, circa 20 years ago, I studied Korean. (I had a friend growing up who was Korean, and he taught me swear words and such, and I figured if I ever got the chance to study I would.)
Anyway, I was 6 months into a language course that was heavily populated by US-born Korean students who were taking it for the easy A... I needed a tutor to keep up so I reached out to the teacher who introduced me to a few Korean exchange students.
They lived in their own apartment, not the dorms. They cooked their own food, didn't go to the cafeterias. Fast forward a bit, my fraternity had a charity event and I invited a few of them... was a casual invite, said something like, "Hey we're doing this thing, tell your friends!"
A week later at the charity concert like 60 Korean exchange students showed up. Every single one of them was dressed in a tux or evening gown. Totally classed up the place. Had no idea there were that many exchange students until that night.
And they were all really appreciative of the invite. Basically said no one had invited them to any events on campus before... I met some new folks, knew just enough Korean at that point to ingratiate myself and get invited out drinking after the event... and quickly realized I was playing checkers at a chess tournament when it came to drinking with Koreans. Ha.
Made some friends out of the deal, but it wouldn't have happened without everyone going outside of their comfort zone a bit.
I sometimes work with foreign engineers, often educated in America and working their first or second job. My wife and I often invite them and their spouse home for a dinner.
In every case, they mention sometime during the evening that its the first American home they have ever been inside. After years of school and job. Every, every case.
Americans, we can do something about this! Invite a newcomer coworker to join you for dinner! Its so simple.
We had two big bunches of foreign students, Chinese and US Americans. Americans organized a lot of parties, the Chinese were hard to engage with. We had a big international community (language exchange regular meetings, parties, movies, BBQs, etc.) But the general thing from the Chinese group was what seemed like shyness. Even when one managed to get them to join, they tended to leave early and barely interact (not for a lack of trying). There were exceptions of course, and I'm currently subletting my apartment (while in another country) to two Chinese students, one of whom turned out to be very talkative once he opened up. But for the majority I met it's really hard to get them to get them to open up. There is some cultural barrier that's very hard to break.
Of course this might be the same for other nationalities, but as those usually arrived here alone, they didn't have a group of countrymen to fall back to and I couldn't tell.
I moved to the US when I was 12 and my middle school principal tried finding someone who spoke my language that I could shadow. She couldn't. Little did I know then, but I think that it might have been the thing that had the biggest outcome in my success in the US.
There were other kids who joined the school from other countries right around the same time as me (we all did ESL together), but they all spoke languages that were highly represented in the school. Over the years, it was incredibly noticeable to me how insular they ended up -- hanging out mostly with expat friends, speaking their native language on breaks, etc.
Meanwhile, I had to try and make American friends any way possible -- which for me was through our school's robotics club (and since I am typing this here, you can guess that the rest is history)
I completely understand the way immigrants rightfully treasure and celebrate their heritage. But I have always found it puzzling -- especially in college -- to see people from overseas mostly hanging out with their own.
I have heard far too many times how "cold" Americans are, how they aren't friendly to foreigners, etc. At least in my experience, that could not be further from the truth. What I HAVE observed is foreigners like myself failing to leave the safety of their known communities and fulling embracing the experience they supposedly came here for.
I can't generalize for every school, or everyone at every school. I attended an engineering program at one of the top 5 schools by total international student population.
Honestly, international students are cliquey. Many of them that I talk to openly admit to cheating on their english proficiency exams universities require you to take before you can attend. Meshing with local students is nearly impossible if you don't understand the language proficiently.
I'd expect you'd see roughly the same numbers if you looked at American students in Chinese universities, or elsewhere. But we have to make this anti-American because its Quartz, and Trump is bad, right?
You can become extremely proficient in the language and be highly sensitive to the culture. You can also spend 10 years in the country to the point were you grasp practically everything, no matter how much randomness is involved in the conversation or the place and time it takes place.
It does not matter. Majority of foreigners, westerners or not, won't have real local friends in English speaking countries.
Even though you do acclimatize to the culture and language you might still not be fond of it. I lived in countries were it would have been easier than in others to interact with people, but in the end I wasn't able to because I either wasn't a fond drinker (commonplace in all english speaking countries) or I didn't enjoy being involved in mundane silly-office conversations during the smoke break.
Most of the fresh expats can't even realize what they are getting into when they move into another country. If you are deciding to do so and you come across this post, do it, go and check it out, but beware that your inner you will never completely mold to that place.
I am curious as to what the ultimate goal is for these foreign undergrads. Get a job in America? Go back home and get a job?
I guess it all depends on the home country and the American school, but I wonder how valuable an American undergrad degree is worth in their home countries?
I know in Japan it often isn't seen as worth it because in Japanese undergrad programs, the people you meet often are a major part of your network along with the people you went to high school and middle school. And these networks are essential to your career arc.
So, by going to school in the US, you lose out on these networks.
But, if your goal is to get a job at an international company where you speak English or get a job in the US, then I guess it is worth it.
What does close friends mean? A lot of relationships in the US are based on "activity" partners[0]. Someone to go out with, sharing a same hobby, passions etc. Close friends in other countries means a lot more than just activity partners.
I had the same experience in grad school, I only had "activity" partners, than what I would call close friendships with Americans. It always felt "distant". It's sadly true even today.
[0] I couldn't find the relevant article that discussed about this, specifically in the American context.
Yes the most American website ever is meetup.com go search the meetups in your area and at least 95% if not 100% are what you DO at work or when not at work, and almost none exist to BE someone or to hang out with an identity. The only identity groups will be like "something area singles group". I find it typically American that all americans aspire while not wanting to appear aspirational, so lots of americans want to start a business, but none would ever be caught dead at a meetup called "we want to start our businesses" or "we want to lose weight", americans can have "gym buddies" to hang out with cool bros but never "weight loss buddies" because that sounds very aspirational. Perhaps Americans are too pessimistic to be caught sounding that optimistic, I donno. Its a pity, you'd think meetup would be a good place for "I wanna learn (some technology)" but thats as unamerican as possible because its identifying as wanting to learn something as opposed to physically doing something, and even worse its aspirational.
Also it never fails to amuse me that they'll be about one hiking group per half million people in a metro area and they all claim they're the "real group" the "fun group" the only "active group". Something to do with Dunbar's number you just can't have 1000 americans work together they have to make smaller tribes and pretend the other tribes don't exist. All a bunch of foolishness. Sometimes I think meetup.com is all an elaborate stunt by some grad student gathering anthropological data about Dunbars number.
I teach at a midwest college and I worry about my international students. Some of them do great but too many of them struggle and I don't have the skills or even the time to help them. I try to make sure that they get mixed into groups with the students from the USA in the hopes of encouraging the creation of friendships but I often feel like the university is just taking their international tuition and not doing enough to help them.
As a foreign student, thank you. Among close American friends, some of them were acquired through my class projects. Although it might not be the most effective channel, it definitely makes a difference.
I think the best the school could do is to make the students stay in dorms with shared rooms when they come to study. Roommates, in my anecdotal experience, are among the best channels to acquire friends. If the school doesn't have the policy in the first place, then perhaps there is little that anyone could do to help, if the students don't make it a priority.
Thank you. As a former international student, I really appreciated the efforts that were made by our faculty to help us integrate. Many of the friends I made, both from the US and from other countries were from the informal events and clubs that the faculty organized outside of class hours.
It is the same for almost anybody studying in a foreign country. It takes a fairly high level of self-confidence to really put yourself out there and cultural/linguistic differences can be confusing to navigate. I myself have studied in 3 foreign countries and can say that it requires a lot of effort to make local friends.
When I came to the US, I made an effort to reach out to Americans (in the dorms, in class, etc). I found that, after you remove the veneer of programmed culture and biases, under it we're basically all the same: similar goals, fears, aspirations, etc. I formed some very close friendships with Americans, and I'm still close friends with them 20+ years later.
My point is: as a newbie in this country, I had to make the effort; if I didn't do that, I would not have made those friendships.
Not everyone is up to making that effort (I agree that they _should_).
For me personally, I could easily have ended up in the 40%. I was not very social, and would have had problems making friends with anyone. As an Indian, I'd probably have welcomed Indian friends, just because I'd have felt less ill-at-ease with them. Luckily, my English was good, I loved playing sports, and some American students made an effort to make friends. That made all the difference. I really appreciate those classmates who made an effort to know a strange-looking, strange-talking kid. They made a massive positive difference in my life.
Also, I did some free tutoring. I probably wouldn't know anyone outside of Engineering, had I not done that.
Another large difference nowadays, I suspect, is that a critical mass of students of certain cultures has been reached. So it's perhaps difficult to break out of a default behaviour of hanging out with "your own kind". When a foreign student arrives in the US, the local <insert foreign-country here> students association welcomes them and helps set them up. Right there are laid the potential foundations of remaining in the comfort zone of fellow countrymen.
I remember, several years ago (2010-ish), a friend's roommate brought a couple of his Indian coworkers home. I got to meet them because I was hanging out with my friend at the time. They hung out for a bit, and then he took them to a shooting range, bringing his gun collection along.
Before they left, he told my friend and I that he was doing this because he read a statistic showing that a huge percent of Indian-born workers have never been in an American's home, so he wanted to get his coworkers out of that statistic.
In hindsight, that act was the only decent thing that man has ever done (he is no longer on speaking terms with me, my friend, or virtually everyone else we know for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with his co-workers).
[+] [-] habosa|9 years ago|reply
I bet you'd find that this 40% number is much different for students studying abroad in a country where their native language is common. My US friends who moved to the UK or Australia had no problem making friends.
[+] [-] morgante|9 years ago|reply
For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even after controlling for English levels.
[+] [-] oblio|9 years ago|reply
By now I have probably spent 1000 hours learning (as part of a formal process), reading, listening, writing and speaking English. Probably a lot more, but let's go with that estimate. The actual language learning part was probably 20%, the rest was acquiring cultural references.
I'm trying to do the same for French, where I'm probably around level 2 or 3, and damn, I had forgotten how long it takes to "load the cart".
In my opinion, native speakers actually "become" "native" in a lesser degree because they were born to parents speaking that language and in a higher degree because they went through school in that language. All the basic lessons at school that everybody learns, all those initial social interactions, day in, day out, in the language they will use for the rest of the life.
It's a lot harder to squeeze those in later on, especially since the interlocutors become less and less accommodating.
[+] [-] hkmurakami|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|9 years ago|reply
American society is massively socially segregated by race and class, more so than in many other countries. I can form friendships with people with zero language in common, but it took me several years in the US to build a community of American friends despite being a native English speaker and a highly literate one at that.
[+] [-] return0|9 years ago|reply
https://thepienews.com/news/erasmus-students-local-friends-e...
And they mostly DO know english and the local language (in fact that's a common reason to do it).
[+] [-] adim86|9 years ago|reply
I am from Nigeria, where English is the National language. I grew up visiting America as a child because my parents grew up there for some portion of their lives. So even with all my linguistic advantages I still bonded more with other International students faster and better than I did with Americans (regardless of race).
I would say the issue I found was cultural, basic things like sense of humor differs. What a Nigerian finds funny is not always the same thing an American would find funny and vice versa.If you cannot laugh together, you have a problem. Same with etiquette, some things a Nigerian may do might be seen as rude to an American but a sign of love in Nigeria. The second issue I found is that Americans don't have a lot of curiosity beyond their own culture. A lot of Americans have the idea America is the best country in the world, so what could they learn from anyone else when they push the world forward, so there is a lack of interest to understand others perspectives and there is a gap.
I personally worked hard to have American friends and I have life long ones today both white,black, latino and Asian American friends but this did not come easy. This took about 10 years of open-mindedness and extroversion that was not always reciprocated.
[+] [-] LiweiZ|9 years ago|reply
edit: combined two sentences into one.
[+] [-] BlackjackCF|9 years ago|reply
Most of the international students I've interacted that pushed through this were really, really social to begin with.
[+] [-] abalone|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] wallace_f|9 years ago|reply
The people who are easiest to befriend are not those with the best language skills, they are those with the same cultural (or sometimes religious) values. At least that has been a very consistent, reliable way of modelling this phenomenon of human behaviour in my travels.
A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends.
Other values around sex and relationships are more subtle but of real importance.
Further, pushing the limits of what's PC to say, the fact is many cultures have a "we need to stick together," or "we stick together to preserve our culture" attitude that ends up also drawing boundaries around social circles based on race due to culture.
Very close relationships, such as romantic relationships, on the other hand quickly approach the point where language fluency becomes absolutely necessary. But friends to do activities with on the other hand--I love it when people are speaking other languages, have different reactions and place different significance on events. It adds spice to life and opens your eyes to see other ways of viewing things the same way you always had.
[+] [-] edblarney|9 years ago|reply
Cultural norms, customs, and the fact that on many campuses, there are quite a number of foreigners, making it more difficult for the social scene to absorb.
US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture' as far as people outside the Anglosphere is concerned.
[+] [-] Arizhel|9 years ago|reply
Hmm, this sounds exactly like me. And I'm a white American guy (obviously, English is my first and pretty much only language, unless you count the German I learned in high school where I don't even meet your level 1).
I'd say I'm at your level 4 with English. When there's too many people talking, I'm unable to discriminate. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, if the relative volumes are different enough I can (so in a bar if someone is talking into my ear and the other conversations are in the background, I can make it out though I'll ask for a lot of repeats), but my big problem is in the workplace, where people for some reason insist on carrying out multiple loud conversations in the same room, right next to each other, and seem to have no concept (unlike the bar-goers) that it's really really hard to follow one conversation when the other one is right next to you at the same volume.
Yet another reason I totally regret going into engineering and software, and wish I had gone into something else where I'd get an office.
[+] [-] hubert123|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flamedoge|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|9 years ago|reply
us, uk and australia are identical cultures. us and india or us and china is not even comparable.
Its not just language, its common cultural memes that bond people.
[+] [-] Bartweiss|9 years ago|reply
Follow the source link and you find that 40% have no close American friends, which is different from "friends on campus". I checked the source looking for a baseline (how many domestic students have no close friends) and discovered that it was specifically about international students making friends with Americans.
> "Nearly 40 percent of the survey respondents had no close American friends and would have liked more meaningful interaction with people born here"
This is a very different result - still important, but the corrected stat and the free-response listed in the source make clear that we're looking at a different question than simple loneliness.
edit: The HN headline has been updated, which is great news. Now if only Quartz could meet the same standards...
[+] [-] beeftime|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jusob|9 years ago|reply
In the US, I didn't realize it would be even more difficult because 90% of the students in MS are foreigners in the college I attended. Anyway, I decided that the best way to make American friends was to be with them all day long. I joined a fraternity on campus.
This was not easy. Most fraternities never had a foreign student, except the one I was accepted in. Because my english was not great, I focused all my time on 1 fraternity to increase my chances of being accepted. I was the only foreigner in all fraternities this week.
It was not always easy, but it was worth it. I joined while doing my MS, all my brothers where freshmen. We had very different work load and about 4-year difference. But I did make friends with all of them. I spent Christmas with one of my friend's family (I didn't leave the US for winter break). It was a great experience.
I'm rather an introvert. But when you travel in a foreign country, you have to talk to strangers all the time. Expectations are also lower when you don't master the language fully. You have to be very direct and explicit in your communications.
[+] [-] wizardforhire|9 years ago|reply
In my limited experience I feel there's a real cultural mis-match with kids from other countries coming here to study. Most of the kids I met were from huge cities and the shock of being in a small college town was in many was too much for them. That and the greek system was overtly hostile to them.
On side a note it's humorous what many kids take back with them from their time in America. It's worth doing an image search of "American party" to see what I mean.
[+] [-] mediocrejoker|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pm90|9 years ago|reply
The best thing that happened to me was to get an internship in a company where my team was composed mostly of Americans. I learned how to talk slower and more importantly, slowly understood sarcasm as well. Perhaps most Americans don't realize just how much of a shared culture is needed for immigrants to understand before they can communicate effectively.
[+] [-] dbg31415|9 years ago|reply
Anyway, I was 6 months into a language course that was heavily populated by US-born Korean students who were taking it for the easy A... I needed a tutor to keep up so I reached out to the teacher who introduced me to a few Korean exchange students.
They lived in their own apartment, not the dorms. They cooked their own food, didn't go to the cafeterias. Fast forward a bit, my fraternity had a charity event and I invited a few of them... was a casual invite, said something like, "Hey we're doing this thing, tell your friends!"
A week later at the charity concert like 60 Korean exchange students showed up. Every single one of them was dressed in a tux or evening gown. Totally classed up the place. Had no idea there were that many exchange students until that night.
And they were all really appreciative of the invite. Basically said no one had invited them to any events on campus before... I met some new folks, knew just enough Korean at that point to ingratiate myself and get invited out drinking after the event... and quickly realized I was playing checkers at a chess tournament when it came to drinking with Koreans. Ha.
Made some friends out of the deal, but it wouldn't have happened without everyone going outside of their comfort zone a bit.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|9 years ago|reply
In every case, they mention sometime during the evening that its the first American home they have ever been inside. After years of school and job. Every, every case.
Americans, we can do something about this! Invite a newcomer coworker to join you for dinner! Its so simple.
[+] [-] mvp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Semaphor|9 years ago|reply
We had two big bunches of foreign students, Chinese and US Americans. Americans organized a lot of parties, the Chinese were hard to engage with. We had a big international community (language exchange regular meetings, parties, movies, BBQs, etc.) But the general thing from the Chinese group was what seemed like shyness. Even when one managed to get them to join, they tended to leave early and barely interact (not for a lack of trying). There were exceptions of course, and I'm currently subletting my apartment (while in another country) to two Chinese students, one of whom turned out to be very talkative once he opened up. But for the majority I met it's really hard to get them to get them to open up. There is some cultural barrier that's very hard to break.
Of course this might be the same for other nationalities, but as those usually arrived here alone, they didn't have a group of countrymen to fall back to and I couldn't tell.
[+] [-] ChicagoBoy11|9 years ago|reply
There were other kids who joined the school from other countries right around the same time as me (we all did ESL together), but they all spoke languages that were highly represented in the school. Over the years, it was incredibly noticeable to me how insular they ended up -- hanging out mostly with expat friends, speaking their native language on breaks, etc.
Meanwhile, I had to try and make American friends any way possible -- which for me was through our school's robotics club (and since I am typing this here, you can guess that the rest is history)
I completely understand the way immigrants rightfully treasure and celebrate their heritage. But I have always found it puzzling -- especially in college -- to see people from overseas mostly hanging out with their own.
I have heard far too many times how "cold" Americans are, how they aren't friendly to foreigners, etc. At least in my experience, that could not be further from the truth. What I HAVE observed is foreigners like myself failing to leave the safety of their known communities and fulling embracing the experience they supposedly came here for.
[+] [-] 010a|9 years ago|reply
Honestly, international students are cliquey. Many of them that I talk to openly admit to cheating on their english proficiency exams universities require you to take before you can attend. Meshing with local students is nearly impossible if you don't understand the language proficiently.
I'd expect you'd see roughly the same numbers if you looked at American students in Chinese universities, or elsewhere. But we have to make this anti-American because its Quartz, and Trump is bad, right?
[+] [-] booh|9 years ago|reply
It does not matter. Majority of foreigners, westerners or not, won't have real local friends in English speaking countries.
Even though you do acclimatize to the culture and language you might still not be fond of it. I lived in countries were it would have been easier than in others to interact with people, but in the end I wasn't able to because I either wasn't a fond drinker (commonplace in all english speaking countries) or I didn't enjoy being involved in mundane silly-office conversations during the smoke break.
Most of the fresh expats can't even realize what they are getting into when they move into another country. If you are deciding to do so and you come across this post, do it, go and check it out, but beware that your inner you will never completely mold to that place.
[+] [-] socrates1998|9 years ago|reply
I guess it all depends on the home country and the American school, but I wonder how valuable an American undergrad degree is worth in their home countries?
I know in Japan it often isn't seen as worth it because in Japanese undergrad programs, the people you meet often are a major part of your network along with the people you went to high school and middle school. And these networks are essential to your career arc.
So, by going to school in the US, you lose out on these networks.
But, if your goal is to get a job at an international company where you speak English or get a job in the US, then I guess it is worth it.
[+] [-] ashwinaj|9 years ago|reply
I had the same experience in grad school, I only had "activity" partners, than what I would call close friendships with Americans. It always felt "distant". It's sadly true even today.
[0] I couldn't find the relevant article that discussed about this, specifically in the American context.
[+] [-] VLM|9 years ago|reply
Also it never fails to amuse me that they'll be about one hiking group per half million people in a metro area and they all claim they're the "real group" the "fun group" the only "active group". Something to do with Dunbar's number you just can't have 1000 americans work together they have to make smaller tribes and pretend the other tribes don't exist. All a bunch of foolishness. Sometimes I think meetup.com is all an elaborate stunt by some grad student gathering anthropological data about Dunbars number.
[+] [-] jccalhoun|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmies|9 years ago|reply
I think the best the school could do is to make the students stay in dorms with shared rooms when they come to study. Roommates, in my anecdotal experience, are among the best channels to acquire friends. If the school doesn't have the policy in the first place, then perhaps there is little that anyone could do to help, if the students don't make it a priority.
[+] [-] erikig|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snvzz|9 years ago|reply
Missing important data for contrast: How many non-foreign have no close friends on campus.
[+] [-] raisspen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1024core|9 years ago|reply
My point is: as a newbie in this country, I had to make the effort; if I didn't do that, I would not have made those friendships.
[+] [-] arambhashura|9 years ago|reply
For me personally, I could easily have ended up in the 40%. I was not very social, and would have had problems making friends with anyone. As an Indian, I'd probably have welcomed Indian friends, just because I'd have felt less ill-at-ease with them. Luckily, my English was good, I loved playing sports, and some American students made an effort to make friends. That made all the difference. I really appreciate those classmates who made an effort to know a strange-looking, strange-talking kid. They made a massive positive difference in my life.
Also, I did some free tutoring. I probably wouldn't know anyone outside of Engineering, had I not done that.
Another large difference nowadays, I suspect, is that a critical mass of students of certain cultures has been reached. So it's perhaps difficult to break out of a default behaviour of hanging out with "your own kind". When a foreign student arrives in the US, the local <insert foreign-country here> students association welcomes them and helps set them up. Right there are laid the potential foundations of remaining in the comfort zone of fellow countrymen.
[+] [-] wallflower|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amyjess|9 years ago|reply
Before they left, he told my friend and I that he was doing this because he read a statistic showing that a huge percent of Indian-born workers have never been in an American's home, so he wanted to get his coworkers out of that statistic.
In hindsight, that act was the only decent thing that man has ever done (he is no longer on speaking terms with me, my friend, or virtually everyone else we know for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with his co-workers).
[+] [-] junnan|9 years ago|reply