Education is of great importance in modern society and it enables individuals to achieve their professional goals and make a positive contribution to the society. Some students desire to study courses that are not available in their home countries. Others want to study in a foreign country in order to be prepared to join the global job market. To achieve their goals, these students enroll in schools that are outside their country. These students are referred to as international students since they have left their country with the aim of studying in another country. There are many advantages of being an international student.
To begin with, the student becomes better prepared for the global job market. The student also gains the ability to relate with people of different cultural backgrounds. Finally, international students are able to benefit from educational services not available in their home country. However, there are some problems that the student faces. One major problem that many international students experience is homesickness. This is the feeling of distress that occurs when the student faces separation from his/her home. Homesickness in international student is caused by culture shock and the failure to meet the high expectations that the international students have about their lives in the new country. It results in poor academic performance by the student.
The first major cause of homesickness is the culture shock that many international students experience. Being an international student means moving to a new country to receive an education. When the person arrives at the new country, he or she faces an unfamiliar environment. The cultural values in the country might be different from those that the student is used to. The host country might also have different attitudes towards issues such as dating and clothing.
The ways of doing things might also be different causing the student to feel isolated. Since the student does not have his family and friends, he will feel alone and unable to cope with the new environment. Some students develop fear and a sense of insecurity in the unfamiliar surroundings. Culture shock might result in feelings of anxiety and isolation. These feelings lead to students experiencing homesickness. They long for their motherland where things are familiar and they feel accepted by the society.
Another cause of homesickness is the disappointment that international students feel when they get to the new country. When travelling abroad to study, students have some expectations. In most cases, international students hold high expectations about the quality of their lives in the new country. In addition to this, they feel that they have the ability to perform well in class and adjust easily to the new environment.
However, the realities are different and international students face many difficulties. To begin with, they might find it hard to make cultural adjustments in the new country. They might face financial hardships since the cost of living in the host country might be higher than that of their home country. In class, the students might find that they are not performing as well as they had hoped. Such events will lead to feelings of homesickness especially in students who had high accomplishments in their home countries. The students will find themselves longing for their home environment where they had a good social network and success.
A significant effect of homesickness is that it leads to poor academic performance by the student. Students struggling with homesickness are likely to be distracted in class. In addition to being absent-minded, they are not able to concentrate for long. Due to the poor concentration, the homesick student will not get all the material that the professor is teaching in class. This will decrease their chances of getting good grades in their exams. In addition to this, students suffering from homesickness tend to isolate themselves from their fellow students. This isolation makes it hard for them to benefit from group discussions or contribute in group assignments.
The negative impact of homesickness on academic performance is important for international students hope to achieve academic success in the new country. Homesickness makes it hard and even impossible for some students to achieve this success.
While international education has many benefits to the individual, students face some problems in the new country. Homesickness is one of the most significant problems facing international students. This paper has discussed some of the major causes of homesickness. The first one is the culture shock that the students experience when they encounter cultural norms and values that are different from their own. The second one is the failure to meet the high expectations that the international students have about their lives in the new country. A significant negative effect of homesickness is poor academic performance by the student.
This effect is harmful since the major goal of all international students is to graduate with distinction. Homesickness leads to poor performance and in some cases the student even fails to graduate. This problem must therefore be addressed in order for all international students to benefit from studying abroad.