Learning by Doing: My Experience of Being an International Student in the U.S.

Chung-Yau (Jacob)

The Chinese have a proverb: learning via reading thousands of scrolls or books isn't as good as traveling thousands of miles. We always learn from books as well as daily life. A minor event or a stranger or even an insignificant opportunity could be your turning point.

Almost a year ago, I was a student in Hong Kong, who [was] striving to prepare the Advance Level Examination. The days were challenging but monotone. Until one night, my parents told me that I could study abroad. I recognize that I am going to make a change to my life, a chance that I could work out my career beyond the Hong Kong's system. I didn't ask [a] study-abroad agent to do the research for me. I did everything on my own. I suffered from various kinds of difficulties such as unfamiliar to the U.S. system and the language. However I learned much from this experience. From knowing nothing to being able to handle everything, I realize how learning by doing would change my life. I am going to share my experience in order to reveal how do I learning from experience.

In fact, study abroad was my fanciest day-dream. I desired this chance since I was promoted to secondary school. At the teen age, I had several friends [who] studied overseas. They went to England or Australia for studying in high school. Every time they returned for the summer vacation, their experiences shared were amazing and exciting. At the time, I believed study abroad could let me [be] free from my parents' control and meet friends in other cultures.

I thought doing the paper work was easy but that was not true. First of all, I found a telephone-book-thick catalog that contains thousands of U.S. colleges. I picked the colleges that I was interested in that met my parents' criteria such as reasonable tuition etc. After that, I had to surf the colleges' websites to obtain information about admission. At that moment, I had no idea what I should I call myself, what is freshman? [Did] I met the criteria to be an international student? Mostly my cousin, who lived in the U.S. for quite a long time, solved all sort[s] of problems. Well, I still remember that helpless feeling when I found something new. The Hong Kong people are actually not utilizing the Internet thoroughly. People use the Internet as a new platform to communicate (E-mail) and to make fun (online-games). I was always facing problems on searching the information I needed. The only search engine I knew was Yahoo. I didn't realize Google was more powerful than Yahoo (Google didn't paid me to say so but Google helped me out mostly). My cousin taught me the tricks to deal with the search engine. I studied computer application in high school. I learned how to write a simple program and how to use Microsoft Office but the books didn't teach me how to search information online. In my cousin's opinion, using the search engine is common sense. He said, "Search in Google before you ask dumb questions."

Without working on the research on my own, hand[ing] it over to the agents instead, I wouldn't have learned how to obtain free and trust-worthy information from the Internet. Now, I work on my term paper with both books and Internet. I usually make fun by searching certain terms in search engine and find results that always enlighten me. In the past, I was a person who was good at speaking and communicating with others. I was one of the speakers in the debate team. I won [an] award from the inter-school speech festival. These achievements meant nothing when I really had to speak English with the native speakers. I was not confident enough to give the college office a phone call. It seemed inefficient to enquire with my stammered-English.

This was the first time I wrote such a prim and proper E-mail that I proofread it several times . . . I remember at the time I got all the paper work done. Eventually I called the college office to notify my arrival with quite a lot of courage. The first time I talk to [an] American, I didn't know what to say. My cousin saw my helplessness, and then he taught me to say, "How are you doing?" I really thanked him for teaching me such a magical sentence.

I am not an outgoing person. However, the experience of studying abroad is not merely study. The time that I was staying in U.S. really changed my character and lifestyle. After I got off the plane, I commenced the life in the U.S. The first challenge that I had to tackle was the problem of language. At the very beginning, I could hardly say a sentence properly even though I am familiar with the vocabularies and grammars. It took me much time to get used to this new environment where everyone here is native English speaker. I realize how important is communication among people. Even now, I am keen to communicate with other people, no matter whether studying or chatting with friends. I have changed much. Communication skills couldn't be learned from the books, but I had to practice it with the others.

In these experiences, I understand how important English is, as an international language. As I met more and more American friends, I found American English is really colorful. Those experiences enlightened me knowing sound English would give me much convenience. On the other hand, the experiences I came along also taught me courage usually makes a difference. The last experience I would like to share is I learned patience in this unfamiliar nation. Hong Kong people are fast-paced. They are used to the hasty lifestyle. Because of the "fast" lifestyle, Hong Kong, small sesame on the map, became a significant international financial center. I am a real Hong Kong person. I am extremely hasty, walk fast, eat fast, and work fast.

In the first couple days in Central Texas College, I waited on and on for the documents, such as my class schedule. This situation, waiting for school paper works, seldom happens in Hong Kong. Actually it is not the first time I experience this situation. Even before I arrive CTC, I found the fast food shop is not really fast. In Hong Kong, the fast food shops are busy all day long. The food is always ready and keeps warm in the shop. In America, fast food tends to be made to order. Made-to-order food is hot and fresh, but the service probably not as quick as those in Hong Kong.

After this situation, I found work fast may not work for good outcome. Made-to-order cause[s] the American fast food [to] take more time to be sold, but in return the food taste better than those sold in Hong Kong. If I always beware of the due date, the quality of that finished task may be awful. From that time, I started to be patient with others and myself. And because the rhythm here sounds relaxing, I began emphasizing the quality instead of quantity. That's really a great change to me.

Learning from personal experiences and travel enriches one's life as well as one's character. If I did not decide to come to the United States, I wouldn't have had a chance to learn patience, courage and even how to use the search engine from books. Learning in life is really as significant as study that enriches one's knowledge and vision. Learning via reading thousands scrolls or books is as not as good as traveling thousands miles.