{"id":18744,"date":"2019-12-11T10:19:46","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T18:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=18744"},"modified":"2019-12-11T13:18:34","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T21:18:34","slug":"camosun-international-students-talk-integration-tuition-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/12\/11\/camosun-international-students-talk-integration-tuition-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun international students talk integration, tuition concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Camosun College has 1,900 international students, according to its website. Many of these students are a long way away from home. Travelling to a new country, learning a new language, and integrating into another culture is an exciting process, but it can also be daunting. The very nature of integrating into a completely new culture with an unfamiliar language produces a challenge for foreign students. Higher tuition fees, communication barriers, and the possible lack of close family supports mean that the international student experience can be full of difficulties. Additionally, the pressure to succeed for their families back home can be a huge stressor.<\/p>\n

International students represent only 10 percent of the Camosun student population, which results in them being shoehorned into an academic system primarily designed with domestic students in mind. Consequently, there\u2019s a distinct possibility that the process of integration is rougher than it could be.<\/p>\n

I wanted to search for the loose seams, the ragged edges: where are the shortcomings? What can be improved?<\/p>\n

Second-year Business Administration student Prashant Giri feels that Camosun\u2019s approach to medical coverage for international students is too hands-off. Enrolment in provincial health-care insurance is mandatory for international students who are here for six months or longer, but Camosun can\u2019t enrol for them.<\/p>\n

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There are 19,000 international students at Camosun College (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe way they tell you about the MSP insurance, it\u2019s disastrous,\u201d says Giri, who is from India. \u201cThey suggest to you that you can [enrol for MSP], but it\u2019s up to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giri believes that students may not see the larger picture and says that health-care coverage should be rolled up into student fees to prevent students from neglecting it.<\/p>\n

\u201c$75 a month is a lot,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can buy two weeks\u2019 groceries for that. Most students are not going to enrol for it, and what if some accident happens?\u201d<\/p>\n

Second-year Marketing student Serena Cizmecigil, who is from Turkey, believes that there should be more effort to integrate international students with domestic students.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore workshops or orientation programs taken during the year, maybe once a month gathering international students with the local students, because most of the time international students are gathering with [each other], so there should be some effort from the school to combine the two groups together,\u201d she says. \u201cThe social supports definitely need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giri says that integrating into Canadian culture while learning English is difficult, and he feels that the communication gap could be addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can learn English, but you cannot learn how to effectively communicate in English, because communication and language are two different things,\u201d he says, while also identifying that language differences change how people interact. \u201cThe way I would console my girlfriend is different than the way I would console someone here.\u201d<\/p>\n

ELD student Ruby Nguyen, from Vietnam, feels that international tuition is too much and that it puts stress on her relationship with her parents, who pay her tuition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I [talk to] my parents, they complain, \u2018Why do [you] study so slow, it costs a lot of money!\u2019 But I have no choice at Camosun,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The issue of tuition has long been contentious among international students: for example, the Camosun website currently lists as the cost of a Business Administration degree $17,809 for a domestic student and $61,240 for an international student. According to Camosun International director Christiaan Bernard in a previous Nexus<\/em>story (\u201cThe cost of being an international student at Camosun College,\u201d January 18, 2017), the extra income is not profit; it all goes back into providing services for students. I asked Giri if he feels that his extra investment is fulfilled through additional services for international students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe services international students get is the same as domestic students,\u201d says Giri. \u201cEverything they do specifically for international students is only for the first three days of orientation, and that\u2019s it. They\u2019ll ask you to play some games or something, but that, too, is only between the international students.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with regards to tuition, Giri is more frustrated by the fact that Camosun predominantly charges international students per semester, not per course.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have three subjects, you\u2019ll pay the same amount you pay for five subjects,\u201d he says. \u201cIf the student only has the capacity to do three subjects at a time, he still has to pay [the full cost]. It gets too expensive for people who don\u2019t have the capability to do five courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part 2 of this story will feature Camosun College and the Camosun College Student Society responding to these students\u2019 criticisms and will be online on Friday, December 13.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Correction: We originally said that Camosun student Serena Cizmecigil is from Syria; she is from Turkey. We apologize for the mistake.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camosun College has 1,900 international students, according to its website. Many of these students are a long way away from home. Travelling to a new country, learning a new language, and integrating into another culture is an exciting process, but it can also be daunting. The very nature of integrating into a completely new culture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18744"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18754,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18744\/revisions\/18754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}