There are a lot of things students need to get used to when they choose to go to school internationally. Xiang “Sylvia” Lian said her biggest adjustment was the food in the United States.
“Chinese food is disgusting, and so I needed to try to eat American food,” Lian said laughing. She said pizza and chicken wings have become her favorite American foods.
Lian is from Guangxi, an autonomous region in southern China. She attended an international high school in China where she experienced other cultures. That experience is why she looked at colleges in the U.S. for further education later in her life.
She said she did not even consider applying to universities in China. After applying to IU, Purdue University, Ohio State University and Michigan State University, she chose IU for the original purpose of studying business.
However, she applied to The Media School instead of the Kelley School of Business to make it easier to get into the University, she said.
“The first place I wanted to get in was the business school, so I chose Indiana University,” Lian said. “But after the first semester, I think I’m better to learn advertising.”
Though her parents wanted to her to be in business, and that is what she intended to study originally, Lian talked to them and told them that she was more interested in media, so her parents let her stay in The Media School.
Lian came to IU with two of her friends from high school and met other friends during the summer though a social media group for international students. Though those two high school friends live in Eigenmann Hall, one of Lian’s friends from home that moved to the U.S. in high school lives in Lian’s same residence hall, Forest Quad.
Lian said Forest is her favorite spot on campus. She spends her free time watching horror films and listening to hip-hop music there.
She has not been home since she left for school, and spent winter break traveling to Chicago and New York City and visiting her friends at Yale University.
Though she has not seen her family since the summer, she said the hardest part about attending IU has not been being away from home; rather, it has been being in a community with Americans.
“The way we do things in China are totally different in America, and sometimes we extend something to Americans that they can’t understand,” Lian said.
For Lian the food and the new communities around her were the hardest part of attending IU. She has not noticed any other major problems.
Even so, Lian said the best part of living in Bloomington is the people and knowing a lot of people is one of the benefits of going to school internationally.
“The best part is the people in Bloomington are very nice, better than other places in America,” Lian said.
