On the way to a successful integration on a US Campus as a French student

Résumé du document

What makes 600,000 young people from all over the world come to study in the United States? Is it the reputation of the US degrees? The efficient teaching methods? Life on campus? Studying in the United States is a dream for a large number of students in the world. A lot of movies and serials give us a dreamy image of what a US campus is. They make us believe that it must be very easy to integrate in such an environment. As our entire group members had at least once thought of spending one year on an American College or still plan to do it, we decided to focus on the integration of French students on US campuses. Many questions arose: is it easy? What problems do students have? When do they feel integrated? Therefore, our main issue will be to find out how French students can experience a successful integration on a US campus. Thus, we thought about the following question: What are the decisive factors in matters of integration?

Extraits

[...] In which university did you go? For how long? I went to the University of Denver (Colorado) in school of engineering & computer science for one year. It was the first time I went to the US. I was 23 years old What were your first impressions when you arrived? Oh that was has difficult question I remember that everything seemed to me enormous but well organized. Actually I believe that I had two impressions in the earlier weeks of my trip. [...]

[...] There is a tradition of criticism in France whereas American people tend to stick at standards and rules. This report reminds us of what Bennett wrote about the US typical behavior: US Americans are more likely to be indirect on intellectual topics. This is exactly what we get from our interviews. French people do not have any problem to discuss about intellectual topics and they have difficulties dealing with this American indirectness Social integration Friends: stayed a lot with other Europeans who were there” have made a few American friends or 5 maybe but I think that 80% of my friends are whether Europeans or from South America. [...]

[...] Let us try to understand each of these different stages. The three first stages are called ethnocentric which means that one's own culture is considered as central: 1. Denial of cultural difference: Your own culture is experienced as the only one that exists whereas other cultures are just ignored. People at this stage are not interested in cultural differences and do not want to see them Defense against cultural difference: The own culture is considered as the good one. People at Defense stage are afraid of cultural differences so they adopt a very critical attitude towards other cultures Minimization of cultural difference: Elements of one's own culture are experienced as universal. [...]

[...] What piece of advice would you give to someone experiencing the same situation? 3. Interviews Interview Interviewer and Date: Nathalie Rübner on February 19th. Name: Stéphane Oury 1. In which university did you go? For how long? I went to Columbia, NY in September 2005. I'm still there and I'm finishing my MBA in May 2007. I'm 30 years old. I have been working for 7 years before I have decided to do an MBA on a US Campus. I don't want to stay here after passing my degree. [...]

[...] We willfully did not ask any specific questions about administrative stuff such as visas, housing and so on because we are interested in their perception of their own integration. Our analysis methods 1 The quantitative research Our analysis consists in a quantitative and a qualitative research. Before making long interviews, we wanted to have a first idea of what people will tell us sot that we could prepare appropriate questions for our interviewees. That is why we have submitted a survey to 60 students who went on a US campus. Our survey is made of several closed questions in order to collect some facts in a short time. [...]