The video “Culture Shock” really showed the struggles that international students and faculty have at the University of Richmond and in America in general. As an international student, I can identify myself with most of the things that were said in the video. Culture shock happens every time we leave our home country. It is, in fact, something natural. It really occurs after the honeymoon period, as Dr. Bhatt would say. First we like being in a new environment, because everything is interesting. But soon, we start seeing the bad side, namely those things that differ from the country we come from and which we have problems understanding. We feel nostalgic, and we start questioning why we are even here.
I remember when I came to study here. At first, I found everything exciting. I met and became friends with other international students during International Orientation and I had the chance to visit the city. It was essentially like vacation. However, when the actual orientation started and I had a full schedule of activities with American students, I realized the difference between me and them. The way people communicate, their body language, the topics that they discuss. I felt alienated. When classes started, I felt overwhelmed with not only the class material, but the entire education system. Similarly to the international students in the video, I struggled with class participation and writing papers. I did not understand why I would have to raise my hand during the class and why there is a need for me to say anything. I thought that the professor should be the only person speaking and that students should be listening. I even started disliking other students, just because I did not have the courage to say something. Fortunately, I overcame that fear. Furthermore, writing papers was extremely difficult and time consuming. As Dr. Essid would say, international students had to do three times as much as Americans, because they had to operate in another language. The Honor Code was another big thing. First of all, I thought it was a joke, because I come from a culture where there is not even a word for something like this. I had a similar experience as the Turkish student in the video. I could not believe that a professor would ever leave the room during an exam.
Thus, my first semester was rough in terms of adjusting and adapting to the American culture, but also the university culture. However, now when I look back, I can say that I might have been too critical and that I judged too much, just because things were different, not bad. In my opinion, that is really what culture shock means, namely failing to understand and accept the culture you find yourself in, because of the parts of our own culture that we carry with ourselves wherever we go.
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