Benefit of being an international student
As we go far away from home to study abroad, I believe that the most challenging part of being an international student is to learn to be independent. When we are studying abroad without parents, we need to handle every issues that we will face in our life. After for a long period of time, our ability of taking care of ourselves will improve. This kind of skill is very important for our life. So, for my perspective, become more independent is one of the most treasury benefit of being an international student.
When I stay at home in China, my grandma cooks the daily meals, and my mom helps me to fix the daily affairs. My father always talk with me in order to teach me how to become better. Suddenly, when I leave them, no one will cook, wash cloths, and teach something for me. Although the technology is highly developed, we can use washing machines and dryers to clean our cloths all at once, we still need to take care of what is the period of washing the cloths and manage them in orders in the closet. Also, though have meals at campus dinning commons, sometimes our international student may miss the dishes we eat in China. So, we may get together with some of the friends and cook the Chinese dishes. Before I come to the America, I am not well on cooking, but after a few months, I practice and practice and waste a lot of crops, finally I can cook some simple dishes well. That’s a big challenging for me because I never cook at home, so it is really memorable for me to learn how to cook.
Despite the the daily affairs, I still learn more on how to handle some difficult things. After staying in Santa Barbara for a few weeks, I realized that it is very inconvenient without a car, so I decided to get a drive license and bought a car. I have drive license in China, but the application process of licenses in America is different. When I first intended to walk-in the DMV to have my writing test with my passport and my I-20, they regret my application because that the documents is not prepared enough. After negotiate with the workers in the DMV, I know that I still need two address certification documents so that I can begin my test. After a few days, I went to the Bank of America and Chase to access my address certifications. Then, I come back to DMV and started my writing test. Before the behind-wheel test, I asked a lot of my friends to contact one of the Chinese driving coach in Santa Barbara, and I took a lesson about how to drive in America. As a result, I pass all the exams and get my drive license. All the processes are done by myself. That is totally different when I stay at home because I have my Chinese drive license depending a lot on my father. He used his resources to contact the most efficient coach for me, so I can get the license easily. This special experience prompt my ability of handling affairs on my own.
Some facts and examples that I mentioned above is the one of the most important benefits of international student I think. Studying abroad strenthen our ability of taking care of ourselves, and we will aware that most of my life, we need to take responsibility of our own lives. We should not be the load of our parents, but we need to become stronger.
