International students find a second home at MU

By Shy Hardiman

Five months ago, for the first time ever, Dheeraj Srivatsav left his home of Bangalore, India for the U.S.

“People are really nice here,” said Srivatsav. “You need to layer up yourself when you go out but that’s the only thing. It [studying in the U.S.] is a good experience.”

The minimum weather in Bangalore, located in the southern most part of India, is 50 degrees and is usually around 80 during warm days, according to Srivatsav.

He is one of the many students that attended the annual MU Multicultural Hour Welcome Party on Jan. 29. The graduate student, who came to MU to get his master’s degree in computer science, sat next to another student from Bangalore, Aditya Parashar.

“We were there,” said Parashar. “Apparently, we were neighbors but we didn’t know each other.”

Parashar also came to MU to get his master’s in computer science. The two ate pizza and drank soda while mingling with the other international students at the Welcome Party. While Srivatsav said that the weather is one of the biggest differences in between India and the U.S., Parashar said that it was the food – and traffic.

“I’m used to a place where it’s almost like war out there on the streets,” said Parashar. “You literally have to stop [cars] with your hands, so that [crossing the street at MU] has been really nice. I like being given preference when you are walking.”

In addition to both being from Bangalore, studying for their masters in computer science, and being vegetarians they are also both multilingual.

“I speak four [languages] – Hindi, English, Kannada, and Marathi,” said Parashar.

Srivatsav speaks Hindi, English, Kannada, and Tamil.

Although they both speak multiple languages, they came to the Welcome Party to meet people that they have commonalities with and differences. Parties like the Multicultural Hour have been one of the main ways that Srivatsav and Parashar have made friends at MU.

“These things are really good,” said Srivatsav. “You get to meet so many different people – so many different cultures.”

And even though they are thousands of miles away from home, they don’t feel like they’ve landed in a foreign land at all.

“People, invariably, you dig a little deeper and they are all the same,” said Parashar.

“New Boy” shows what it’s like to attend school in a different country

By Shy Hardiman

Although 10 minutes minus the credits, director Steph Green’s “New Boy” was the topic of an almost hour long panel discussion facilitated by the MU International Center last week.

The film features a young african boy on his first day at a school in Ireland after violence in his native country forced him out of Africa. At his new school, Joseph, at first, struggled with making friends and he also had recurring flashbacks of time spent in Africa with his father before he was murdered due to the violence.

Ultimately, Joseph was able to find common ground with some of his peers that had initially bullied him and he became a little more vocal by the end of the film.

“Sometimes we underestimate those initial alliances,” said Astor Villamil, MU assistant professor of the Department of Communications.

While Joseph had found himself at the center of attention for two bullies, they fought, got in trouble together and that experience is what made them closer. The teacher throughout the film tried to get Joseph to open up about his peers bullying him, but her interventions actually made the boys closer as they found a common person to make fun of – her.

“As adults, we think we manage children’s experience. In reality, children have their own cultural order,” said Bill Kerwin, MU associate professor of the Department of English.

The teacher didn’t mind that she took the brunt of Joseph and the boys’ jokes because she was able to see Joseph bond and be a little more extroverted.

Teachers like the one in the film know that going to a school in an entirely different country, can be challenging for students.

“I saw that he’s having to relearn a lot just to go through school and that’s what we see a lot with our students,” said Shelly Fair, coordinator of Columbia Public Schools’ English Language Learners program.

Fair helps teachers with creating effective English learning instruction for Columbia, MO’s 1,021 international students. Those students represent 57 languages and 110 of them are refugees from countries like Iraq.

Some of the students come from violent backgrounds like Joseph so teaching and getting them assimilated can be difficult, Fair said. The overarching message that came out of Monday’s discussion was to allow these international students to get used to their new country, new classroom and new people gradually.

“We are constantly promoting using native language and inviting family,” Fair said.