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- I do have a few from the tutoring lab, but I don't necessarily hang out with them outside of the lab
- Currently, not really. I kind of hang out with the same group of people all the time.
- I didn't really before this quarter.
- The number of international student friends that I have far outnumbers the number of Americans friends that I have.
- Really? - Definitely here in Athens, yes.
- Wow, that's kind of unexpected. Why did you choose to make friends with international students?
- It's not like I decided, "I need some international friends."
I'm in the linguistics department and it is a bit more diverse than some of the other departments
so of course I become friends with the people that surround me.
- I'm not really the most outgoing person so meeting new people is a challenge for me.
I tend to meet my friends through my other friends, so I'll meet someone who's friends with someone I'm already friends with.
I don't usually go up to a stranger and say, "Hey, let's be friends."
- Most of the time when American students become friends with international students, it's usually through a group or a club.
I joined the international business society one quarter and I met a ton of international students
that I would have never ended up becoming friends with otherwise.
- I remember with my conversation partner from freshman year, he loved basketball and talked about it all the time.
I don't really know much about basketball, I don't talk about it
but if I had, that would be something we would have in common, and I'm sure it would've been something we shared
- Absolutely there are challenges. There are cultural differences of course.
If a culture is new to you you certainly aren't going to be aware of everything.
- A lot of American students are very outgoing and maybe students from other countries aren't as outgoing
and maybe are intimidated.
- Some of my friends have had some culture clashes, but nothing too terrible.
- I live with an Indian, and he is a very good friend of mine and he has been since we met
but there have been many times, especially in the beginning, where we didn't always agree
where I wasn't quite sure what he was doing, or what he expected from a situation.
And so we would have to sit down and say, "These are the differences between our cultures."
And I'm not talking about anything life-changing or something detrimental.
Something just as simple as putting dirty dishes on the floor.
Or keeping doors open and doors closed. Things like that.
Just these subtle little simple things that you might think, "Well, how can they not understand why I would want to have the door closed?"
But then you have to think, can they really understand why I want to have the door closed
when I'm not really understanding why they want to have it open?
- The United States, we don't really have a lot of borders.
So there are a lot of places in the United States where English is the only language spoken
and I think people could go their entire lives without meeting a speaker of another language.
- It's hard to make friends with someone who doesn't speak the same language as you
but even so, you don't have to speak exactly the same language. There can be rough translations
and you can still see eye-to-eye on certain things and you can still enjoy the same activities.
It's just kind of hard to look past language.
- I've heard some students, they complain.
For instance, people always complain about math teachers who don't speak English very well.
It's hard to understand them. I guess that's the biggest one I've ever heard - TAs.
But personally that's never bothered me because usually with an accent like that you get used to it.
And at the very least it's something new, because we're not all the same people.
I like it.
- I would love to more international friends.
I think it's really cool to learn about the different ways people interact with others and where they grew up
and the differences between America and other places.
- The international students have already made a step in coming here, so I think that as American students at an American university
people should take more initiative in becoming friends with students from other countries.
- I know if I were to ever go to another country and not completely know the language, I would hope that people would reach out to me.
because you're in a new situation, a new surrounding, it can be really frightening I'm sure.
- Making friends with an international student is the equivalent of making friends with a stranger. I don't know that person, I don't know that person.
They're equal weight, but it's still kind of hard to just go up to a person.
You need a reason or an excuse, almost.
So I suppose, whoever wants it more should put more effort in.
But at the same time I feel like students should be accommodating to international students.
Be willing to if not at least meet them halfway, go be the instigator.