Foreign students isolated, friendless

Here is an interesting news about a study of international students about their experiences study in Australia. I found this article from : http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23161031-12332,00.html

Milanda Rout February 05, 2008

MORE than two-thirds of overseas students in Australia feel lonely and isolated, and universities need to urgently try to address the problem by encouraging more friendships between foreign and domestic students.

New research shows 67 per cent of female and 62 per cent of male international students experience "periods of loneliness and isolation" while studying in this country.

Researchers from Monash University and the University of Melbourne interviewed 200 students at nine universities across the country and found a failure to form friendships with domestic students was a key factor in loneliness.

The researchers found that students from Singapore were the most lonely, with 100 per cent of those interviewed saying they felt isolated and left out. Young people coming to study from Malaysia also report high rates of friendlessness and desolation, along with students from Indonesia and China.

Some students told researchers they felt they were "in a very strange place" and had the sense of being "lost in a jungle" when they first arrived in Australia. "I just stay in my room ... sometimes I cry and when I cry out, I feel better," said one student from Malaysia.

An Indian student interviewed for the study said the loneliness experienced by overseas students "gets to the point of depression".

The five research authors, including Erlenawati Sawir and Simon Marginson, found that culture shock, personal isolation and an inability to make friends with local students contributed to loneliness among overseas students. "It is significant that 65 per cent of those who had experienced loneliness or isolation had faced barriers in making friends across cultures," the research states.

The study recommends that universities make sure they have "adequate" student services and classroom strategies to help overseas students cope with loneliness by offering counselling, helping students learn English, and setting up social clubs and buddy systems.

"Yet relations with locals might be the key to moving forward on loneliness," the report states.

"If a stronger social bridge between international students and their local context is to be built, this (friendships with domestic students) is the place to build it."

The authors recommend that universities help domestic and foreign students bond "more effectively" by setting up more shared classes and encouraging involvement in sporting and social clubs.