On a typical day as an international student ambassador, Korean national Jun Hyuk Lee fields questions from prospective international students on everything from scholarships to academic life at the University of Michigan–Flint. International student ambassadors provide a free service to prospective and incoming international undergraduate and graduate students by sharing their knowledge about living and studying overseas at their respective universities.
“We do our best to provide as much information about our experience as possible to prospective students,” says Lee.
Programs vary at global universities, but through social media, university websites, Skype and other forms of communication, prospective international students can request to connect with ambassadors or even reach out to them directly while researching schools — and then receive support through admission and arrival on campus. Some schools may also connect international students with ambassadors once the students are enrolled.
Though time frames may vary among universities, Kirsty Mattinson, head of international student recruitment and support at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in China, said via email that students can normally get in touch with the school’s ambassadors in one to three days, and “there are no limits to the frequency of contacts.”
Here are three ways international student ambassadors are beneficial resources for prospective international students.
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1. They can share their experience. International student ambassadors relay their experience to prospective international students at different stages in the college application process. For example, students can learn how international ambassadors applied to the university and chose their major. And experts say students can connect with an ambassador who is from their country of origin, speaks the same language or is in their planned major.
“The key for my job is to let them know that I have been in their shoes,” says Chinese national Weijun Yu, a student ambassador at the University of Utah.
Yu, who is pursuing a Master of Science in health promotion and education, initially reaches out to prospective international undergraduate and graduate students via email. Once students are accepted, Yu say the school assigns her to help those pursuing biology, premed or public health, and she provides program-related information on scholarships, textbooks, career planning and department faculty contacts.
One of Xi’an Jiaotong’s international student ambassadors, Indonesian national Nicolas Keefe Sutanto, says he’s talked to prospective students in countries like Yemen and Tanzania. He’s told them, for example, about halal restaurants near school, the availability of part-time jobs and how to survive without access to Google in China.
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2. They can answer specific questions. Prospective international students can ask ambassadors questions on everything from university life to housing.
“We aim to answer questions from prospective students regarding admission requirements, courses, legal requirements for residency etc. Every student has different needs and requirements and we are very open to being asked anything,” Sara Haapanen, international student ambassador coordinator at the University of Helsinki in Finland, said via email.
Yu says a student from Sri Lanka was unsure of how to find housing before arriving in Utah. Yu provided her the links of on- and off-campus accommodation sources and says “she eventually found an apartment with another international student.” Yu also serves as a face-to-face mentor during orientation for new students and uses the occasion to “offer opportunities for them to get to know other international students, to build their own social life.”
Prospective international students can also connect with ambassadors who speak the same language. Mattison said Xi’an Jiaotong’s ambassadors contact prospective students — and their parents — in the families’ own language by phone or digital media, and noted parents often have “lots of practical questions about studying and living in China.”
American Jason Mario Dydynski, an international student ambassador and doctoral student at the University of Tartu in Estonia, says students can contact him “at any time, whether they are just exploring the idea of the university or are already here and need some help settling in.” Dydynski says the university’s ambassadors work to connect international students to the local community and have created information and a variety of infographics, which are available on their blogs and Facebook page, to help answer common questions.
3. They can provide practical tips. Ambassadors can also provide advice on aspects that prospective international students may not have thought of.
University of Helsinki master’s student Shirajum Monira from Bangladesh says learning some basic words or phrases of the local language in the country where a student plans to study “will help you outside campus and integrate faster.” She also recommends that prospective students plan ahead to understand the health care facilities that are free and to get suitable health insurance for the services that require payment.
When it comes to making new friends, international students may gravitate toward students from their own country. Yu suggests they plan to instead expand their social circles.
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“Participate in as many on-campus international student events as you can. It can boost your confidence to express your opinions in front of strangers with your second language. Language barriers can be cleared by active communication,” Yu says.
And while prospective international students may spend much of their time researching universities, Sutanto, the ambassador at Xi’an Jiaotong, says they should also find out about the city that surrounds their prospective university.
“What can you do during your free time? What kind of local foods can you try? Here in Suzhou, China, we have bug kebabs!” says Sutanto.
He says researching these things may seem trivial now, “but when you are finally there, you will wish that you had.”
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3 Benefits of International Student Ambassadors originally appeared on usnews.com
