By Koun, Mike, and Brandon
Design challenge
Starting/overall question
How can we assist international students with their transition to Penn State?
International students have problems before they come over. Based on what we already knew of (before we started interviews), the official website that Penn State provide for the international students was lack of information on life (i.e. housing, transportation, and etc.), and lack of language support.
There was uncertainty about how they get all the information, and resources to make transition of their lives to a new environment when the institution doesn’t provide sufficient support for them.
Research methods
1) Interviews with international students from different communities
(3 Korean, 1 Dominican Republic, 1 Puerto Rican, 1 Turkish)
2) Analysis of resources from researcher’s experience as an international student.
(Websites, physical materials)
Understanding of the problem – Initial findings
- Unofficial support groups have already been set up through mediums such as facebook or a number of websites for various groups of international students. These support groups are not officially through Penn State.
- Various groups of international students each have their own specific problems when arriving here, with varying amounts of overlap between
- Problems include: Trouble finding housing, trouble obtaining specific materials such as cooking ingredients, difficulties with language barriers (especially for casual settings), limited resources offered by Penn State in English, cultural gaps, tendencies to stick to isolated cultural communities, and trouble adapting to the local environment.
- Many incoming international students find a pre-existing connection they already have in Penn State to aid in the transition, often through family or friends.
Support communities arise organically, or are even self organizing. For example, international students may create Facebook groups a year or more before coming, and share questions, concerns, and solutions. Communities also exist at Penn State already, and draw on the experience and language skills of settled international students. In either case, these groups can be understood through the lens of communities of practice. Settled students could be understood as core members (especially group officers, organizers, etc) and incoming international students could be understood as peripheral participants.
These communities have different resources available, reflecting different problems. They have different solutions to different problems. Through our initial research, we reached the conclusion that the most effective approach would not be to attempt to address specific problems, but to assist existing groups/communities in being able to address problems in general.
Zach Lonsinger says
My first thought when reading this is maybe there are people that reach out to international students beyond the official international website from Penn State, sort of like ambassadors. Have you looked into that possibility, that maybe there are designated PSU ambassadors that assist international students with their transition? I don’t know if there is or not, but that would be a great resource for international students and I’m not sure if that is already in place (you would assume, but then again “we are” Penn State…).
Your conclusion is interesting. I like the approach your group is heading toward – not attempting to fix problems but rather find ways to assist existing groups in solving problems. I think this is powerful in so many ways and across multiple domains. Just the fact that you aren’t barging in and trying to fix all these problems but you are seeing these students as PSU students and working alongside them in helping them address these problems, instead of holding their hands and fixing them for them.
Isaac Jason Bretz says
I guess my only concern would be for ethnonationalities which have too small a representation at Penn State to form much of a community, or that are under represented in certain colleges which might limit some very necessary advice. I also wonder if the practice of creating these types of communities may privilege certain norms of class and gender in certain cultures.
Audrey Romano says
This is definitely a tough challenge, especially in light of the cultural norms that Isaac mentioned. Even if there were PSU ambassadors, those faces and skill will change from year to year. It’s perhaps a bit similar to our design challenge, which is to also connect with past students. Their experiences and willingness to continue participating in the transition or conversation even after their experience as a student would be paying it forward. I wonder if even there are decent resources for American students who aren’t from this area? I know that coming even from Philly, I didn’t know many people here and just defaulted to on-campus living because I didn’t even know how to transition to that level of independence. Sometimes we even come with this desire or even arrogance that we can figure it all out ourselves without help.
Priscilla Taylor says
I truly get the sense that your group heard what the community you’re designing for needed and letting that guide your next steps (choosing to serve communities that are already present). My only wondering is if there is a specific group or community that your group could focus on. It seems as though it would be a tough order to include all groups in this challenge and picking one might help focus your next steps.
Katie Bateman says
I’m curious how these transitions happened before the internet- did we just not have an international representation? (I don’t think that’s true.) The internet is a huge tool for finding things like housing, cooking ingredients (google “international market in state college”- it’s how I found out where my soft pretzels are (; ) for an individual person family. However that doesn’t create community. I can Yelp a new bar, but a recommendation from a peer will make me more likely to try it. What was there to support them pre-internet?
Leah Bug says
Interesting insights to the problems international students face coming to Penn State. I agree with Isaac’s comment and extend it to students attending Penn State who don’t have fellow nationals attending the university. I interviewed a student from Singapore in which she stated she has found 2 other, but has only met one of them. While she can participate in Chinese New Year and other similar activities, she doesn’t really feel part of this community as Singaporeans have their own ways in celebrating these events. Very interesting topic! I think there is a lot of opportunity for Penn State to provide better support for international students.
Adam says
One of the things I would be interested is if these groups cater to grad students specifically or if they are a mix of undergraduate and graduate students. I find a lot of groups while open to graduate students, are really geared to undergrads. Have you considered this in your challenge?
pul121 says
You team mentioned that the university does not provide sufficient support for international student. I wonder if only Penn State did not do a good job of assisting international students or most universities in America didn’t do that either. When America is greatly recruiting more and more international students, what are the purposes of doing these? Does the value weight more on cultural and intellectual exchange or heavily on economic gain? Won’t it be a problem in some aspects if no action is taken to create a supportive environment?
Dean says
Is assisting “existing groups/communities in being able to address problems in general” disruptive enough?
Brandon says
Can you clarify what you mean by “disruptive” in this context?
Dean says
Hi Brandon,
Sure, let me try…
“…the most effective approach would not be to attempt to address specific problems, but to assist existing groups/communities in being able to address problems in general.”
Maybe I am misinterpreting what you are stating here, so my apologies if I am.
It just seems like you are sticking with the existing approach that groups are using to transition/acclimate to university. My question to your team is…why? Why stick with what is already being done? Why not try something new? Why not address specific problems? Why just assist the group and not help design a new way for folks to better transition to university and a new culture?
Again, I may be misinterpreting what you are putting out here. It just seems like a good area to disrupt and not just stick with current trends.
Thoughts?
Brandon says
Fair questions. We believe increasing current groups’ abilities to solve problems can have the most impact for a number of reasons. First, no matter how much we investigate a problem, we will never understand it like the communities that deal with it understand it. Language barriers are one example of this. Second, different communities have different problems, and different resources to deal with problems, but they don’t necessarily share them. Finally, improving their ability to deal with problems isn’t more of the same. Given that we’re only identifying the problem and have not yet posted our ideas for solving it, it’s a bit soon to say we’re doing nothing new.