Some people say, "If you love someone, let him go abroad, because abroad is heaven;" If you hate someone, let him go abroad, because abroad is hell. "Studying abroad is going to heaven? Or go to hell? Please listen to the story of the bearer:
1. Looking for a house to move: When I first came here, my English and Cantonese were not good. I called to find a house and muttered for a long time, but no one else understood. It's hard to get the address and the traffic is unfamiliar, so it's also a challenge to see the house. When I want to move, I see cartons everywhere, and more and more bags are moved, which is even more terrible.
2. Unfamiliar traffic: Strangely, the buses here don't serve on some days, and the number of services on some days is very small. Once I made an appointment to meet someone and went out to wait for the bus, but I didn't come for an hour. I didn't know until I asked, so I had to cancel the appointment. Many times, I made an appointment to meet at a place, and I was more than an hour late. All the time is wasted in asking and finding the way.
3. Unfamiliar environment: I'm new here in a foreign land and don't know where the post office is. I can't find the mailbox on the roadside. I don't know how to operate the coin-operated washing machine, and I dare not wash clothes for months. I'm sick and I don't know where the pharmacy is. I don't know if I have to make an appointment with my family doctor before I go to the hospital, just in case.
4. Different eating habits: Western food is expensive and unpalatable, and I want to cook by myself, but when I first arrived, I was afraid that I would move soon and didn't want to buy too many pots and pans, so I stubbornly ate western food for several months.
5. The shopping road is long: I need to buy a lot of school supplies, such as computers, notebooks, books and so on. Before school starts. But no one told me where to buy it, and I couldn't find it in the nearest supermarket for a long time. Someone asked the name of a shop and the address was wrong, which was quite difficult.
6. The application procedures are complicated: telephone, electricity, gas connection, bank account opening, car purchase, registration, driver's license and other procedures. What documents do you need to bring? Do you have to queue up like in China? I'm not familiar with this procedure and need advice.
7. The regulations are quite different: the regulations and systems in many places have caused trouble. Do not know the local laws, do not know the basic rights and interests. For example, transportation tickets in Canada, regardless of transfer or bus ride, are tickets as long as they are in the same direction. Unlike in China, newcomers have to explain.
8. Language barrier: All activities must be in English, and all documents and materials are written in English, so English is not a sad thing. Even after studying English in China for many years, new international students still find it more difficult and time-consuming to adapt to the language than others. If you don't speak well, your life will be very difficult. Being with people in China is very comfortable, but English progress will be slow.
9. Psychological stress: no friends, staying at home all day; Make foreign friends, but you are afraid of being cheated and learning badly. Borrowing money to save money for studying abroad, the tuition fees for food, clothing, housing and transportation are all US dollars, and people with poor economic conditions are under great pressure. It is a heavy psychological burden to be separated from family, homesick and take care of parents and wives in China.
10. All-round test: There are many good places abroad, and there are also many bad places full of temptations and tests, such as *, pornographic places and so on. Choose your own good or bad, no one cares about you. Young people who are protected in China often lose their way under the impact of many free ideas.
All these difficulties are faced by almost every new international student. However, with firm confidence, all these difficulties can be overcome.
Climb higher and you can enjoy more magnificent scenery.
Many people who have stayed abroad for a long time, looking back on their experiences of struggling abroad, have taken many wrong paths. If I can start over, how can I go?
1. Physical and mental health is the most important: going out to study is stressful, and physical and mental health is the most important. Health is broken, and nothing can be done. So pay attention to your normal diet, life balance and mental health. Many people suffer from depression due to malnutrition after eating instant noodles, staying up all night, being in a trance during the day, studying test reports until their hair turns white or bald, getting along with others, and being nervous all day.
2. Interpersonal relationships are indispensable: In addition to their academic and work abilities and achievements, foreign general school companies attach great importance to interpersonal relationships, leadership coordination and communication skills. Students in China often just bury themselves in their studies and pay no attention to people's communication, so they suffer invisibly.
3. It's not sloppy to nod and giggle: Although I listened to a lot of oral tapes before going abroad, I still feel that Americans speak fast and vaguely after arriving in the United States. Nod and giggle when you don't understand in ordinary social occasions, but you can't be careless at critical moments. Especially when the professor assigned homework and talked about the scope of the exam, he grabbed the professor or American classmates, repeated what he heard in his own English, and then asked, "Is that right? Don't leave until you get a positive answer.
4. Guidance is very helpful: most foreign students who have just arrived overseas are unfamiliar with foreign culture, so that they reject foreign culture and language, which is very unfavorable for living overseas for a long time. We should accept our strangeness and actively make friends with local classmates, so that we can learn the local language quickly. Try to establish mutual learning partners, learn each other's language, eliminate strangeness, and quickly enter foreign cultures.
5. Beware of crooked ways: after introducing the Christian gospel through classmates and friends, I am very yearning for this belief. There are often many activities organized by churches and organizations on campus, and I will attend them as soon as I have time. But later, I found that there are often some weird religious organizations on campus who enthusiastically pull you to their parties. Once, they refused to tell me the specific place of the party, and insisted on picking you up and not letting you drive by yourself. It is very important to identify such religious organizations. The most effective way is never to act alone. If you have questions, don't join them.
6. traffic rules should be observed: traffic rules are most likely to be violated abroad. In China, pedestrians and cyclists will not be punished, but not in the United States. A classmate was caught by the police crossing the street where there was no crosswalk. Cyclists should abide by the same rules as motor vehicles and stop red lights and stop signs before driving. Violators will be fined the same and their driving records will be affected.
7. Help others when receiving help: People should know how to ask for help when necessary. General schools and government agencies have service units, and China Homecoming Association and Chinese churches all over the country are also willing to help new students. This kind of help is mostly emergency, and it also needs people to participate in its services, so that the scope of services can be expanded. Unfortunately, some students in China don't know how to ask for help, some don't want to ask for help, and some refuse to help others. In fact, the experience of getting and giving help is a very important part of our study abroad.
8. There are many headaches in renting a house: finding a house is the most headache, and asking classmates and friends for information is the first way. The second way is to patrol the neighborhood. Do you want to rent or lease? Rent? Knock on the door or write down the phone number. The third way is to find rental information on school bulletin boards and community newspapers. Other ways, including surfing the Internet and going to a property management company, are feasible. Don't rent a house too far away from the school, it takes a lot of time to attend classes, and it also loses the opportunity to contact students. When renting a house, you should inquire about the qualifications of the management company and read the contract carefully to avoid being deceived or unreasonably detained when moving out.
9. Talking about insurance when you are sick: Usually, the school will require students to buy the most basic student medical insurance, and those with lower premiums will pay more. General insurance is that hospitalization expenses are high. In fact, many foreign public and missionary hospitals have social service departments to help take care of low-income people. As for the diagnosis and treatment of dentistry and ophthalmology, the preparation of denture glasses is often not covered by basic insurance. Domestic medical expenses are much lower than those abroad, so try to solve them before going abroad or when returning home to visit relatives.
10. You should be patient when buying a car: the car is the most common means of transportation in North America. If there is no car, it is very troublesome to ask someone to pick you up or take a bus. However, owning their own cars requires a considerable price: most new international students buy second-hand cars first. Based on the information in local newspapers and other media, most of them buy them in a hurry, which often leads to many problems. Here, I suggest that you don't rush to buy a car, you should have someone who knows the car to provide advice, and you should be patient and choose a suitable car before you can choose. If possible, choose a newer and better car as much as possible. At that time, the price may be higher, but considering its high safety, fuel saving and low maintenance cost, it will still be valuable after depreciation, and it may be worth the money.
Just as distance tests a horse's endurance, time reveals a person's heart; Just as distance determines the strength of a horse, a person has stood the test of time; The strength of a horse is tested by the distance it walks, and a person's heart is seen by the passage of time.
Chen Bo dictated: Do you ask me if it is difficult to study in the United States? How can I answer you?
The first problem I met in America was the language problem. After I graduated from China University of Science and Technology, I went to the University of California to study for a master's degree. I got more than 600 points in TOEFL and 2 100 in GRE, which is not low. But once in class, especially in the first few classes, I can hardly understand what the professor is saying. Because, like many science and engineering students, I have strong reading ability and poor listening and speaking ability; Second, professors themselves often have accents, either foreign accents or eastern, southern and central American accents.
I was depressed at first, but one day it suddenly dawned on me that if all professors have accents, it just proves that even people with poor oral English can make academic achievements and still enter the mainstream American society. From then on, I cheered up and tried to participate in various classroom discussions. Although my accent is still very strong, I have a positive attitude and can make up for my language defects with academic standards. I found that none of my professors and classmates laughed at or despised me. On the contrary, they think I'm a foreigner and it's normal to have an accent, although they didn't fully understand my first lecture once or twice. But after two or three times, they understood my accent "system" and it was easy to understand.
My second problem in America is homesickness, missing my parents, grandma, grandpa, grandpa, grandma, uncle and aunt. At that time, I didn't know that I could buy calling cards in various consignment shops, and calling China for one minute was only 10 cents. I use a long-distance telephone company. More than 50 cents a minute. I dare not call more. I only call once every two weeks. I dare not say more, but I can only tell my parents that I am "very good" in America and that "America" takes care of me.
This is a fact. These "Americans" were sent to our school by a nearby church. On the first day I reported to school, an American asked me in Chinese if I was a mainlander. I said yes, and I have been taken care of since then. Those Americans take our mainland students to the supermarket to buy food every week, teach us to drive, provide us with all kinds of useful news, and take us out for an outing and barbecue.
Since there are places to go and activities to participate in every weekend and holiday, I feel less homesick gradually.
After my master's degree, I began to study for a doctorate. I went back to China for a blind date in the summer vacation and married a girl who studied engineering, which solved another difficult problem in my life in the United States. As soon as she arrived in America, she accepted the Christian faith from the heart. Whenever there is an argument between us, she will go to church and sorority for support and comfort. This sorority is an organization of women in the church, and I think its function is a bit like the "Women's Federation" in China. But the difference is that the sorority is not biased towards women and listens to my complaints. For example, when my wife first came to America, she often divorced me, saying that she married me because she didn't know me, and our marriage was purely a "misunderstanding". The Greek people convinced her that marriage was sacred in biblical words. The pastor of the church also came to give us a marriage counseling class, so that we can learn to "love each other, respect each other and tolerate each other". We listened. It worked.
After that, I went to church every Sunday. Although my wife has been very sad, thinking that I was baptized under pressure, I don't quite believe it, but I feel that I have changed a lot. In the past, I basically didn't care about faith and adopted the "three noes" policy on the contents of the Bible-no refutation, no discussion and no thinking. In my wife's words, it is "lazy to death". Now that I have become a Christian, I can't take this lax attitude. I began to listen carefully to the preacher, read the Bible and reference books, and discuss problems with you.
At the end of last year, I began to submit my resume and look for a job. A fellow villager abroad learned it from me. Now that the economy is depressed, will I be unable to find a job? I blurted out, "God is in charge of my tomorrow." After saying my words, I suddenly realized that I really believed in God from which day and moment!
Now I have found a job in a high-tech company in the West Bank. I never regret coming to America, because this is the life I really want. Although I have suffered some hardships in order to adapt, we young people can survive those hardships. Through them, it will be a new world. Looking back on these five years of studying abroad is like an hourglass in my wife's kitchen. Although there are difficult bottlenecks, as long as you persevere, the wonderful music designed by the designer will ring for you.