What’s It Like to be One of Eleven?

International students at Southern Virginia University.

by Tyler Smith and Dallin Hunt

Not many students get to experience life at a small liberal arts school against the rural backdrop of small-town Virginia, and the number of international students in that category is much smaller.

According to registrar Whitney Larsen, on average Southern Virginia has eleven international students enrolled each year. Usually, around half of these students are Canadian. In total, 150 international students have attended SVU since its establishment, about half of whom stayed to graduate.

Because Southern Virginia is relatively young and still growing, there has not been much international recruiting, but Larsen believes continued growth in international enrollment is likely as the university gains greater recognition and student population increases.

International students usually find out about Southern Virginia through members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Larsen said. For example, Robert C. Gay, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy and former president of the Ghana, Accra mission, sponsored several Ghanaian students, according to Larsen.

To better understand the experience of international students at Southern Virginia, we asked a few of our eleven current students to share their perspectives.

Nahuel Recebarren

Nahuel is a first-semester freshman from San Juan, Argentina. He played volleyball competitively in Buenos Aires for one year before moving to the United States about three weeks ago to play for Southern Virginia’s volleyball team.

Nahuel says he came to the states to learn a new language, experience a new culture and “see if life [in the U.S.] is like it is in the movies,” as he put it. He enjoys the calm, laid back environment at Southern Virginia because it helps him focus on his studies, and he is grateful for the opportunity to be both a student and an athlete. In Argentina, he explained, you can’t play sports and study in school at the same time.

The adjustment to a new language and culture has been a challenge though. “I’m starting from zero,” he said, “I feel like I have to re-learn everything.”

But Nahuel has found plenty of support. “Everyone wants to help,” he said. “People here are very supportive… I have enjoyed making new friends.”

Chris-Anthony Collins

Chris is a junior from Kingston, Jamaica. While serving an LDS mission in Birmingham, Alabama, he was introduced to Southern Virginia by his mission trainer. Shortly after his mission he came to the states and visited the school. “It felt like the right place to be,” he said.

He feels that there is great opportunity for growth here in the U.S. and at Southern Virginia particularly because of its positive environment. However, he has also faced challenges. “I experienced culture shock,” he said, “It was like the mission all over again, but this time I was all alone… our cultures are so different. In Jamaica people are so blunt, and I’ve had to learn to be careful with my words.”

Chris is studying Business but is thinking of switching to Psychology. He is unsure if he will stay in the states or return to Jamaica when he graduates, depending on work opportunities.

He is a car enthusiast and loves working with cars. He emphasized that his dream car is NOT a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but an Audi R8.

Kyle Adams

Kyle is from Cape Town, South Africa but has lived in Utah for a few years. “Mom is from Zimbabwe, my dad is from Zambia. [They] immigrated to South Africa and got married,” he said, “We all grew up on the beach and enjoyed doing active things together.” Some of his interests include hiking, technology, and the beach — he fell in love with hiking here at Southern Virginia.

He decided to transfer to Southern Virginia last semester, along with his friends Nicole Suapaia and Andrew Fonua.

“Personally I like how it is smaller, so when I walk into a classroom, I’m with friends, not just random faces,” he said. “Additionally, I like how they assign advisers who help not only with [academic concerns] but with any concerns.”

Leilani Olsen

Leilani grew up in British Colombia, Canada on a small island called Salt Spring. She comes from a family of eight kids and was married about two years ago. She is expecting a baby in July.

“I learned about Southern Virginia from my husband and in-laws,” she said. “They all talked about the personal connections you made with professors and the focus of the school on personal growth and learning, all very important things to me.”

“They [the professors] will move heaven and earth to help me exceed in my classes. I don’t feel lost in a crowd here, I feel like I am known and cared for.”

“Being Canadian, you don’t get the huge culture shock that other foreigners might endure,” she said. “We eat the same foods, we speak the same language, we share a similar history.”

Jill Stevenson

Jill is a senior from Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. In 2013 she discovered Southern Virginia at a fireside in her area given by representatives of the university. “I wasn’t really doing anything with my life,” she said, “so I figured, why not?”

“Southern Virginia has also allowed me to experience things that are far outside of my major (like opera and economics) and they have been some of the most rewarding things that I have ever done.” Jill is studying biochemistry.

She loves to cook and watch YouTube videos of others cooking when she can’t. She also enjoys painting, and reading fantasy books with “women who kick butt and take names but are also soft and kind,” as she put it.

For Jill, the only challenge of being an international student is going through customs four times a year.

Speaking of the benefits of studying internationally, she said:

“It opens up your world view and really allows you to see humanity not as a fractured set of different nations and ideas but people just like you.

Sometimes their customs are frightening (the first time I saw someone with a hand gun in a Taco Bell I about lost it) but they all want the same thing: to be able to spend time with the people they love and eat as much of their favorite food as possible.”

Southern Virginia has had students from each of the following countries:

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Dominican Republic, Germany, Ghana, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Japan, Kosovo, Libya, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Uganda, Ukraine.