By Eric Sean Weld   ............................   Related story: What in the World is CFLAC?   It's a Small World (College) ............................

It was nearly midnight on August 25, 1996, when Gitanjali Pinto '00 finally set foot on the Smith College campus. She was a day late due to an unscheduled overnight layover in Frankfurt, Germany. She had just spent 36 hours in flight from Bombay and the airline had misplaced her luggage. "I thought, 'This is it, I might as well go back to Bombay,'" she recalls of her first day at Smith. "I had jet lag, I'd lost my bags and nobody could understand my accent. That first night I cried a lot." A week or so later the airline recovered Gitanjali's bags and she moved into her room in Wilder House. "Then I got malaria," she says, "and spent several days in the infirmary." During the following weeks she scrambled to catch up on class work. Not until mid-semester did she begin to feel comfortable in her new environs. Most international students' initiations to Smith aren't so fraught with turmoil and mishap. However, many of these students have heart-wrenching stories to tell about leaving family halfway around the world, traveling to a new land and arriving at a place where they have no friends, little knowledge of the culture and no idea what the future holds. "Leaving home was a lot worse than I had imagined," says Elif Tosun '02, a computer science major who recalls saying goodbye to her tearful mother at the airport in Kucukyali Izmir, Turkey. "Leaving my mother was terrible. We have a great relationship and she had always been there whenever I needed help. I remember crying all the way in the air as I was coming here. I still cry a lot, not because I don't like being here but because I miss everything about home." "The best thing about being an international was the ISP. They were the best days I've had here. I met another Turkish student. It was great to have someone who could speak my language and share my feelings about all the new stuff, since we were both going through the same situation." Elif Tosun '02 Leaving home was also hard for Octavia Petrovici '01, from Bucharest, Romania, "mainly because I suddenly found myself in a place where I had no roots, no knowledge whatsoever of the culture and no friends. The hardest thing was leaving my family and all my friends behind. The first couple of days I felt so out of place that I thought people would notice and just send me home where I belonged." Regardless of where they come from, most students find it hard to leave home for a strange place. The challenge of making new friends while concentrating on studies, acquiring huge amounts of new knowledge and participating in extracurricular activities can be overwhelming. For internationals, all those challenges are amplified by the pressures of having to quickly adapt to a new culture, communicate in a new language and fight off the looming awareness that home is much more than a few hours away. The reasons students come to Smith from abroad are as a varied as the students themselves. International students all work hard to overcome the financial, logistical, cultural and emotional challenges because they're assured that at Smith they will receive a top-quality undergraduate education in an environment that respects diversity in race, culture and lifestyle and encourages all women to realize their potential. Efthimia Sarvani '01 of Thessaloniki, Greece, applied to several other U.S. schools-Hamilton, Dartmouth, Brandeis. "But Smith met all my expectations and exceeded them because it is a highly regarded insitution and I knew it could meet my academic needs," she says. "Leaving home for the first time to come to Smith was hard. But I was driven by a strong desire to experience the new, rely on myself, work for what I want and go after my goals." For Chia Chi Tan '02, a native of Singapore, Smith's strong reputation in Asia convinced her to come here. "I considered Boston University and Boston College and a couple of other schools," she says. "But I want to major in the sciences and Smith offers more than the other colleges I considered. Also, Singaporean [Smith] alumnae greatly encouraged me to think of Smith." "I want to major in the sciences and Smith offers more than the other colleges I considered. Also, Singaporean alumnae encouraged me to think of Smith." Chia Chi Tan '02 Pinto was sold on Smith when she visited campus with her parents as a young girl in 1989. "I saw women playing lacrosse," she remembers. "Everywhere, women were playing. Everywhere I looked, I saw women doing things. From that moment on I decided I wanted to come to Smith." Everybody Benefits Some 70 new students arrive on campus every year from countries as diverse as China, Brazil, Lesotho, Bangladesh, Norway, Yugoslavia, Guatemala and Ukraine. In all, more than 200 Smith enrollees-about 8 percent of the current student body-represent more than 60 countries outside the U.S. Smith plans to increase its international student body to 15 percent during the next decade as it endeavors to become a "world college," a microcosm of cultures, races and people from around the globe. Smith's recent diversity mission statement maintains that the presence on campus of a wide spectrum of the world's myriad races and cultures will enhance the educational and cultural experiences of everyone in the college community, particularly those of students. The college's recent self-study report, commissioned by the Office of the President, concurs: "The quality of the educational and social experience Smith can offer is dependent, in part, on our ability to expose students to a rich variety of perspectives and experiences." Toward that end, further funding has been approved to subsidize increased international recruitment, and future funds have been earmarked for additional scholarships for international students. Meanwhile, an array of campus programs and groups have been designed to assist and support foreign students in almost all aspects of their Smith life. Students arriving from abroad say they would be lost without the college's Office for International Students, part of whose purpose is to put students at ease from the moment they step off the plane, according to Associate Dean for International Students Hrayr Tamzarian. "We try to hold their hands firmly when they first arrive," he says. "All of them, no matter where they come from, miss their parents." Tamzarian or another college representative meets every new international student at the airport when she arrives. The next few days are spent walking her through the logistical necessities and paperwork she needs to legally study and live here and beginning to acquaint her with the everyday idiosyncracies of American culture and behavior. "I have to spend a lot of time just explaining to students American culture beyond Baywatch, Dallas, Beverly Hills 90210 and Hollywood movies. We take them to the mall to shop for everything for their rooms. We introduce them to American food very slowly." The first event on first-years' agendas after arriving from abroad is the International Students Pre-orientation (ISP), a four-day program directed by Tamzarian that immerses the students in workshops, social gatherings and counseling sessions and helps them obtain visas, open bank accounts and take care of other exigencies that American students barely need think about. During ISP, all the new international students live together in Lamont House. The program is essential to getting many off to a good start and for some is one of the highlights of their college years and a source of lasting friendships. "The best thing about being an international was the ISP," says Tosun. "They were the best days I've had here. I met another Turkish student. It was great to have someone who could speak my language and share my feelings about all the new stuff, since we were both going through the same situation." Petrovici agrees. "From the first time I came here to attend the ISP," she says, "I felt I was not alone and that there were people who cared about me, even if I was thousands of miles away from home." Pinto feels so strongly about the importance of the pre-orientation program that she volunteered to participate in greeting and assisting new international students during this year's session. "This is a whole chapter of our lives we're beginning," she says of arriving at Smith. "I wanted to help make the program as good as the one I had. You're so overwhelmed when you first arrive here, it's just helpful to have an upperclassman to talk to who has been through this." Missing Home and So Much More Once pre-orientation is over, international students move into their respective houses with their American roommates (the college tries to avoid pairing internationals in the same room) and begin life as Smith undergraduates much like any other student. However, throughout their Smith careers, many international students say, they are repeatedly reminded of their foreignness. They struggle to keep up with the college's stringent writing requirement in what may not be a native language. They contend with the challenge of adapting to new cultural behaviors, continuously adjusting their mannerisms, dress and hair styles, speaking accents and colloquialisms to better fit in with their surroundings. "I think of pounded yam and egusi soup, of parties and dinners at friends' houses and cooking in the kitchen with my mother, of making cakes for all the visitors who are going to drop by on Sunday afternoon." Ruth Gyuse '99 And they constantly miss home. For internationals, that means more than missing a place and a family. It means longing for all the little things, the familiar cultural behaviors, the food and dishes they grew up with and chances to speak their native language. "I think of a lot of things when I think of home," says Ruth Gyuse '99, a French and architecture major from Jos, Nigeria. "I think of pounded yam and egusi soup, of parties and dinners at friends' houses and cooking in the kitchen with my mother, of making cakes for all the visitors who are going to drop by on Sunday afternoon." "It's inevitable to miss home," says Sarvani, who interns with the Office for International Students. "Sometimes you wake up and realize that there's no one to say a simple 'good morning' to in your own language." But internationals are never without companionship at Smith. The Office for International Students offers several programs throughout the year designed to bring them together to affirm their cultural heritages and introduce others to different aspects of their backgrounds. There's the popular International Students (IS) Day in the fall, a fund-raiser that invites students to prepare and sell foods native to their countries and clothing from around the world. Proceeds from IS Day benefit international students in need. Then there is "Rhythm Nations," held every April, in which international students perform music, dance and poetry from the many countries represented at Smith. Smaller programs and gatherings offered by the Office for International Students pepper the academic year and keep students in social and cultural contact. In addition, the International Students Organization (ISO) is a student-run office that works closely with Tamzarian and his staff to address the ongoing needs and interests of students from abroad. The ISO sponsors numerous lectures, panel discussions, films and other cultural activities throughout the year in conjunction with other support groups such as the Black Students Alliance, the Asian Students Association, Nosotras (a Latina student group), EKTA (a group for South Asian students), Korean Students of Smith, the Smith African Student Association and Indigenous Americans of Smith. Students say that ISO gives them a vehicle through which to communicate their needs and a place to go where everyone has something in common: being a foreign student in America. "Through ISO we get a chance to talk about who we are, present problems that are crucial worldwide, talk about our cultures and exhibit our backgrounds to the rest of the campus," says Sarvani, an ISO cabinet member. "ISO is the voice of all international students. It is our means to bring ethnic and cultural diversity to our fellow students and to the school itself." A Place to Make it Happen When considering the value of a Smith degree abroad, internationals agree that it's worth the effort they mount to adapt to their new surroundings and succeed. They know their time here will pay dividends for life, both in terms of personal growth and the practical skills and knowledge they'll take home with them. "What is happening here is extraordinary," says Sarvani about a Smith education. "Here they make you believe that you can succeed in anything you set your mind on. Here they make you stronger and more self-confident. And it's not just the school that does that, it's also all the other women I've met from all these different backgrounds. They carry so many diverse mentalities within them." As for Gitanjali Pinto, she's come a long way since her plagued first semester. During her sophomore year she became heavily involved in house activities, joined varsity crew and was elected ISO cultural chair. She's maintained a dean's list­caliber grade-point average and this year is ISO president. As for her accent, she says she's lost what she calls "that Indian twang," so that people can easily understand her English now. "I had hit rock bottom," she says of her early days at Smith. "But since then it's been straight up. I wouldn't want to change a thing about Smith because I know I can make everything the way I want it to be. Here there's a chance to make it all happen."

..............................................................................................................................................................

NewsSmith is published by the Smith College Office of College Relations for alumnae, staff, students and friends.
Copyright © 1999, Smith College. Portions of this publication may be reproduced with the permission of the Office
of College Relations, Garrison Hall, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063. Last update: 1/18/99.

Made with Macintosh