I teach at a midwest college and I worry about my international students. Some of them do great but too many of them struggle and I don't have the skills or even the time to help them. I try to make sure that they get mixed into groups with the students from the USA in the hopes of encouraging the creation of friendships but I often feel like the university is just taking their international tuition and not doing enough to help them.
As a foreign student, thank you. Among close American friends, some of them were acquired through my class projects. Although it might not be the most effective channel, it definitely makes a difference.
I think the best the school could do is to make the students stay in dorms with shared rooms when they come to study. Roommates, in my anecdotal experience, are among the best channels to acquire friends. If the school doesn't have the policy in the first place, then perhaps there is little that anyone could do to help, if the students don't make it a priority.
Thank you. As a former international student, I really appreciated the efforts that were made by our faculty to help us integrate. Many of the friends I made, both from the US and from other countries were from the informal events and clubs that the faculty organized outside of class hours.
