Before I do my regular post, I just wanted to share that Penn State is ranked 10th in the United States for international student enrollment. Go us! The article was actually sent to me by two students I interviewed.
And now for my last Passion Blog post (I’m surprisingly emotional).
For this week, I am going to be blogging about Jaime. Jaime is a sophomore from Vancouver, Canada and she is majoring in Finance.
Jaime is an only child and has a close-knit extended family, all of whom reside in Canada. Jaime can speak English fluently.
Jaime wanted to go to school in America because she wanted to experience new things. I wanted a change of pace and I have always been the type to travel,” said Jaime. She’s been on various volunteer trips all-over the world. She applied to both Canadian and American schools. She toured all the schools she was accepted into, including Penn State. Jaime ended up choosing Penn State, because of the academics and the atmosphere of the school.
Jaime has really enjoyed her time at Penn State thus far. “I fell in love with Penn State when I toured it and it’s really everything I wanted it to be and more,” said Jaime. Jaime likes the passion and drive of Penn State students and the opportunities provided to her from the Smeal School of Business. She really likes to take part in THON and is a member of a Operations committee. “THON was the highlight of my freshman year by far and I met my closest friends in my org and my committee last year.” said Jaime. Jaime also likes the many opportunities for student volunteer service that Penn State provides, as well as the tolerant and welcoming atmosphere of the school. “My only dislike would have to be the housing process, it’s so stressful!” said Jaime.
Jaime’s does not think being an international student made her transition any harder. She’s very familiar with American life an culture, she has many American friends. For Jaime, college was a more difficult transition. “I just got so home-sick sometimes, in the first semester I honestly thought about transferring all the time. I was surprised how much I missed my friends and family. It hit me one day and I started to doubt my decision to go so far away from home.” said Jaime. But, Jaime worked through it by throwing herself into her studies. She also credits her roommate Lucie (who is a French international student) with helping her stay focused on her studies and not on her home-sickness.
Jaime says her goals for the upcoming months are to “survive and succeed during finals week. I also want to find something productive to do over the summer.” Jaime is very excited to see her family over winter break!
Thank you to everyone who’s read and commented on the blog! I’m glad I chose to do this for a blog, I’ve met a lot of awesome people and learned more than I could have ever imagined. At first, I mostly interviewed my friends. There are a bunch of international students on my floor. All the other people I have interviewed I met through mutual friends or in my classes. It was nerve-wrecking to talk to people I barely knew and even more nerve-wrecking to get them to agree to let me blog about their personal life story! In the end, I’m happy to say I came out of my own shell and really grew to like writing this blog.