International students’ spend winter break in the States
Written by Paige Hamrick
R Sangeeta Raj spent her first 20 New Year’s Eves watching fireworks go off from her grandmother’s Kuala Lumpur apartment balcony. This year, she will welcome the new year in Times Square since the third-year computer science engineering student will not be traveling home this Winter break.
For many international students, time and cost make it unreasonable to go home for the semester break, so many choose the options of visiting other parts of the United States or sticking around a much-quieter campus.
Ohio State is home to over 6,000 international students, who come from across the globe — including Raj, who transferred to Ohio State from a Malaysia university in January 2017. This is the first extended time she has spent away from home, so she wanted to use the time to explore other areas of the U.S.
“I’m excited… it’s my first time for New Years in the United States… spent in New York,” Raj said.
Teoh Jian Sheng, third-year majoring in computer science engineering is traveling to Rochester, New York to visit his girlfriend.
“I’m going to visit for about three weeks before I come back… It’s my first time in that city,” Sheng said.
For those days that aren’t spent traveling the U.S., international students are on or around Ohio State’s campus.
As far as Ohio States accommodations for students staying on campus over break, they are minimal. According to Dave Isaacs, Office of Student Life’s spokesman, the money spent to cover housing over this break “purely pays for the cost of maintaining the building, and that’s it.”
While specific fees in academic-year housing go toward hall events and speakers, the population is too small during breaks to justify these expenses.
Isaacs said that there were plenty of things going on in the Greater Columbus area that students, who are still on campus, could take advantage of.
“There are a lot of activities that D-Tix provides discounted tickets for,” Isaacs said, “We make a great effort to introduce first year students to things going on in Columbus.”
Before she visits New York, Raj is planning on taking advantage of some of the D-Tix deals and events that Columbus has to offer. She plans on exploring downtown Columbus with her roommate Sonia.
“I haven’t done that yet,” Raj said, “we are close to it, but never have time to just leave and explore it.”
Isaacs said that Ohio State’s accommodations for those staying on campus over break is something that they would “definitely be looking at going forward.”
Source List:
Sangeeta Raj 614–530–8730 Nov. 29 : Interview in Thompson Library
David Isaacs Nov. 28 : phone interview 614–292–8424 isaacs.84@osu.edu
Teoh Jian Sheng (JS) 740–606–1644Dec. 1 : Interview at Union
