Adapting to everyday life

Student Lounge International Students
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<p>I'm helping out with my college's international student orientation and am looking for some tips to give to the incoming freshmen. Basically, for those of you already in the States, what are the difficulties/surprises you faced in adapting to everyday life? If possible, also include your nationality and the type of college you are going to. For example, I am Singaporean and I go to a small, semi-rural LAC. Thanks guys!</p>

<p>What I have for now, from personal experience, and CC thread-scanning are::</p>

<p>-- Greetings: "How are you?" is not meant literally, but should be taken as "Hello". A lot of seemingly substantive questions are merely small-talk--it's to make conversation; not for the purpose of knowing</p>

<p>-- People are really friendly here. Some say it's a superficial friendliness (because of the above reason), but I enjoy it. I remember feeling a little shocked (pleasantly) when random strangers greet me or smile at me. </p>

<p>-- Hugs: In Singapore, we rarely hug (at least guys, don't). Here, friends hug all the time.</p>

<p>-- From Sally_Rubenstone:: "Some of the international students I know have been offended--or at least confused--by the casual way that American students tend to make plans that never really happen"</p>

<p>-- Wastefulness </p>

<p>-- Tipping. </p>

<p>-- Political Correctness.</p>

<p>-- The diversity. Not everyone is rich and white. There is plenty of poverty around.</p>

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<p>I am from Germany and I have been splitting up my time between a suburban LAC and an urban university in the Philadelphia area. I was surprised by the following:</p>

<p>Student-professor interactions: much more informal than I expected. In Germany I would address my professors by their full title, e.g. Mr. Professor Doctor Schmidt, and it would be inappropriate to go to office hours with a question about the lecture if the answer can be found in the library too. </p>

<p>The academic indecisiveness of my American classmates: in Germany students have to commit to a major when they apply to college. I was expecting my LAC classmates to be somewhat undecided but not completely so. (I literally had friends that went back and forth between physics, anthropology and creative writing…)</p>

<p>How easy it is to try new activities: just drop by, no experience necessary.</p>

<p>How much students at my college cared about recycling, organic and/or locally-grown food, regular exercise, and LGBTQ rights. How much time we spend talking about racism even though I have never observed any overt racism. And how little they seem to care about religion. (After all, America is the country where the Charles Darwin movie could not be screened in theaters because it would have been too controversial…?) </p>

<p>Free refills, free bread, water and condiments in restaurants, that groceries are bagged for me (and that the bags are free too!), self check-out lines, coupons, reward cards.</p>

<p>Pop psychology and how freely students utilized the counseling center.</p>

<p>This ominous thing called a “credit history” that people seem to plan their life around.</p>

<p>How expensive cell phone service is and that I need to pay for incoming calls and texts.</p>

<p>How much grocery prices vary by area. In my suburb groceries are literally twice as much as 30 miles away from the city. Oh, and Trader Joe’s (with mostly organic food) happens to be cheaper than any of the discount grocery stores and supermarkets.</p>

<p>Graded homework: I was used to my grades hinging on 1-2 exams and 0-1 quizzes. And grade inflation. An A in Germany means that I am in the top 5% of the class. An A in the US only indicates the top half.</p>

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<p>It is funny how one’s perceptions vary greatly depending on his/her own cultural background. From the point of view of an Asian kid from China or Singapore, US Americans may indeed look “really friendly”. However, in Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, etc.) or Latin Europe (Italy, Spain, maybe even France), the usual stereotype about US Americans is exactly the ** opposite **, i.e that they are “unfriendly”, “cold” and “distant”, in part because they are more wary of physical contact (e.g. won’t greet with a kiss on the cheek, stand several feet back when talking to someone, are more sexually “repressed”, etc.) and, furthermore, show greater concern/respect for individual privacy than in Latin cultures. </p>

<p>Personally however, I actually find Americans quite friendly, but maybe for reasons that are different than the OP’s. In particular, I don’t see their friendliness as superficial at all. On the contrary, I think it is easier to make true, bonding, long-term friends in the US than in other cultures/countries, even though that set of bonding friends may be smaller than your usual social acquaintances. </p>

<p>Anyway, the point I wanted to emphasize is that perceptions are very relative and you should take experiences like the OP’s in context, as they may be very different for you depending on your own set of circumstances.</p>

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<p>Got to applaud you for that observation. I remember talking to a kid from puerto rico (well not really latin america) and he said Americans were “unfriendly” relative to those in Latin America. </p>

<p>Another perspective, I lived in an European country for a while, and I initially found the people as “unfriendly” and kind of boring at first relative to Americans but kind of got used to the fact that they are just culturally more reserved which is not really a bad thing (there are sometimes I dont want to start a conversation with a random stranger which is always the case in “friendly countries”, and I am not typically not interested in hearing about the mundane lives of every person I meet at the bus stop). Ironic though that most people in that country, while being reserved, said they liked Americans because they were friendly and less reserved.</p>

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<p>Get used to being quizzed about your accent. Try not to get annoyed.</p>

<p>Sales tax isn’t included on prices: the price on the tag isn’t the price you pay.</p>

<p>Restaurant portions are huge, but it’s perfectly standard to take some of it home for later.</p>

<p>Americans are obsessed with race/ethnicity.</p>

<p>Beer is a social class thing. What beer you drink marks you out as a person.</p>

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<p>im in a college where professors pound marxism down our throats, Teach us how bad are country is and how it should really be run. Burn flags. Anti-americans. Mean while, Lesbians and Feminists run rampant trying to ignorantly destroy the roles of men and women alike. Religon is bashed in all forms and a large majority of students and teachers are agnostic or militant athiests. We are being told that we are being liberated from a conformed way of thinking that has been going on for thousands of years. We are being told that we are being allowed to become free thinkers.</p>

<p>I don’t even know what is going on and i dont like it.</p>

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<p>^ sounds like you’re being exposed to new ideas. nobody said it would be easy,</p>

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<p>a lot of people would rather be politically correct than say their real opinions. also, they tend to sugarcoat things, being blunt/overly truthful is not considered a good quality.</p>

<p>be mindful when criticizing american politics, depending on where you are, this may not exactly be welcome. americans are deeply patriotic. oh and don’t bash the fourth of july. </p>

<p>always say please and thank you.</p>

<p>respect personal space!</p>

<p>tip at restaurants/in taxis. its considered really impolite not to.</p>

<p>be mindful of others if you’re a smoker.</p>

<p>don’t chew with your mouth open or make noises. i don’t even know if this needs to be said but it may be normal in other cultures…</p>

<p>if someone says something offensive and ends it with “no offense”, they seem to think it excuses the offensiveness of their statement. i’m american and even i find that annoying so you may also be annoyed by this.</p>

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<p>I always notice that most americans don’t say “please” to serving staff. If you do this you’ll be more polite than 90% of Americans.</p>