Students' voices from InTALKnational

 I would like to thank all of the students and staff who participated in our third InTALKnational. Every time we do this event, it makes me realize international students do have a voice that should be heard and there is always improvement that we can make to make our daily lives at UCSB better. I would like to share some of my thoughts from the event.

First, there are as many good points about UCSB as there are negative things. Because we are usually working to improve international student life at UCSB, we tend to talk about the problems and take for granted the positive things UCSB has to offer. However, during inTALKnational and in talking with international students directly, I hear a lot of positive things about UCSB. For example, many people mentioned how much they like the weather and the ocean and the relaxing atmosphere. Many people also like the people they have met at UCSB, and their classes. There are so many more positive stories I have heard from students and this makes me happy. This is sometimes overlooked as we focus on improvements. I think it is important to keep in mind that there are many good things about this campus. Just keeping the positives in mind will improve the quality of life here. AND, if you experience any negative things, please come talk to us!

Second, there are still hurtful stereotypes about international students, such as not being ‘enough.’ I hear from international students who were treated differently because of their accents by classmates or teachers, or students avoiding international students to be partners in classwork. I would like to remind the domestic students or whoever is reading this that just because international students have accents, does not mean they are bad at English or studying. They might need extra help sometimes, but that does not mean they are less intelligent. International students want to learn and do well as much as you. International students want to make domestic friends, but some are scared and not confident enough to approach a domestic person because they are afraid of being judged. So, to international students, please try and go for it, make domestic friends and have fun living in the U.S. To domestic students, please approach international students and try not to treat them differently.

Third, I would like to tell the participants that your voices are heard. We are currently coding the data we collected from the past three times, and we are sharing our results with OISS etc. We will do our best to improve whatever is needed to be improved. So please continue to participate in our events and please come talk to us whenever. We are here to represent all of you and to help your experiences at UCSB as best as we can. Feel free to approach us and talk to us whenever things come up!

Thank you for reading this blog!!