A new club, Daniels Beyond Borders, provides community and advice for international students at the Daniels College of Business.
There’s a lot that Hasina Rakotondrabeharison wishes he had known about being an international student when he arrived in the U.S. from Madagascar six years ago to pursue an undergraduate degree at Brigham Young University-Idaho.
“I’ve seen the struggles that international students face, because I’ve gone through it,” he said, referencing challenges such as finding housing, working with American professors and preparing to find a job after graduation.
“It’s not like universities don’t give international students support, but the experience is different from the student perspective versus the college or the staff’s perspective,” he said. “As a student, you want to focus on your studies and graduate as fast as possible or get to the workforce as fast as possible, but there are constraints you have to face before getting to those opportunities.”
To help support and offer guidance to other international students on acclimating to U.S. college life, Rakotondrabeharison, now a graduate student in the business analytics program at the Daniels College of Business, recently joined with two other international Daniels graduate students—German MBA student Florian Weinzerl and fellow business analytics grad student Tarini Sharma, who is from India—to form Daniels Beyond Borders, a club for international graduate students at Daniels.
Sharma, Weinzerl and Rakotondrabeharison
“When I came to the U.S., my brother was here before me, so I had a way in, and I had some help,” Sharma said. “That’s the main focus of Daniels Beyond Borders—helping to prepare international students for their new reality. For current students, do they need housing? For those who are graduating, here are some resources they can use to find a job.”
A sense of community
Nearly half of the 65 international graduate students at Daniels are already part of the club, which launched in January with a potluck party. That party featured everything from butter chicken and biryani from India to potato fritters from Madagascar, pork dumplings from the Philippines, and Irish soda bread, all brought by members.
The leaders now communicate with members primarily through Instagram and LinkedIn. Daniels Beyond Borders aims to help international students with issues including housing, credit, work visas, job hunting and navigating the U.S. academic system. Additional events are in the works as well, including events that enlist Daniels alumni to offer advice and potential career connections.
“Our thought process with events is that fall quarter is about making new friends, winter quarter is about solidifying those friendships, spring quarter is helping people get jobs and summer quarter is celebrating the achievement that they’ve had over the academic year,” Sharma said.
Daniels Beyond Borders also aims to give international students a greater sense of community and expand their horizons, Weinzerl said.
“Many international students tend to have the mentality of, ‘I’m here to study, study, study,’ and they don’t look at other aspects of being an international student,” he said. “I use myself as an example. When I came to the U.S., I was just focused on studying. I did not know how to look for jobs, and I know I have to find a job after graduation. I think the biggest problem for international students is adjusting to the school system here in the U.S. Most international students don’t know what an office hour is.”
Academic adjustments
Sharma agreed that the attitudes of the U.S. academic world can be an adjustment for international students.
“Especially in graduate school, if you’re not following along in class, you have to be the person who reaches out to professors to make that connection happen,” she said. “In the Indian school system, if you’re left behind, your friends are going to carry you, but you don’t tell the teacher that you have questions. A lot of students don’t see it as an option to email a professor. It’s like, ‘Am I allowed to do that? Is this an overstep?’”
The club’s founders know there is even more basic information about life in the U.S. that not every international student is aware of.
“I was in my last year of undergrad, and my mom said, ‘Now it’s time for you to get a credit card,’” Sharma remembered. “I said, ‘Why do I need a credit card?’ I didn’t know you need a credit score to rent an apartment. These are the things I wish people would talk to students about. As a master’s student, people assume you know what you’re doing, but at the same time you’re a master’s student in a foreign country. It’s a whole new set of rules.”