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International students from over a hundred countries arrive in York every year to be greeted with crumpets, Eastenders and rain. For many, slipping into the British way of life is extremely smooth: we’re not that different! But for some, acclimatising to a foreign country and culture is rather challenging.
The University’s International office has provided an orientation service for several years now dedicated to helping students find their feet. Manned by second and third year students, this service helps new arrivals with bank accounts, mobile phones, bedding etc. Being able to drive to university is a luxury not available to most internationals who consequently have to rush around town buying cooking essentials and English plug adaptors.
While this extra time allows many students to sort all the nitty gritty official stuff out before the joys of Fresher’s Week whirl them into a seven day drunken stupor (or seven days of sober fun, pick your version), it may also be a root cause for the tradition of international students excluding themselves from their British peers.
A survey carried out on ten of last year’s orientation attendees showed that eight of them have more International friends than British ones. Considering only 2,500 of the 11,000 or so students are international, this figure is quite high. Indeed, seven out of ten are now sharing houses with people they met on last year’s program. The division seems, therefore, to begin immediately. By the end of Week 0, internationals have generally already made close friends and are disinclined to participate in their college’s Fresher’s week where most flat bonding takes place. Indeed, half of those surveyed did not take part in many of their Fresher’s events.
Sophie Pickup, a third-year international student thinks that the extra week at university “in practise causes a divide between students and internationals from the start. During Fresher’s Week there is more than enough time to sort out bank accounts, phones etc”.
However, it would be too easy to blame the international orientation program for the supposed lack of integration. We must not forget that students who come from far abroad have a tendency to stick together anyway, simply because they share an experience unknown to most home students.
Indeed, international orientation week can help new overseas students in many different ways. Firstly, arriving a week early provides the new arrivals with the necessary time to settle in properly before the madness of Fresher's Week starts. It is easy to overlook the amount of paperwork international students must go through when they arrive in Britain. Visa scanning, police registration and opening a bank account are just a few of these tasks. 'Once everyone arrives, they (international students) are equally free to socialize and have fun instead of worrying about the tasks', Daria Pawlowska, one of this year's welcome team members explains.
Furthermore, the briefings presented to new internationals help them to make more sense of their new environment. 'Where to seek help, what are the rules, where to socialize, what do you need on a night out? Answering this questions gives the international students attending a much broader understanding of what life in Britain and at a British university and looks like.'
Although the international orientation program has been blamed for having a negative effect on the integration within the university, it is difficult to ascertain whether this is truly the root cause. It is true that international students tend to hang out together, but they would probably do this anyway, even without the program. The idea that they share a “third culture” as a result of growing up in different cultures is a very strong bonding point. Crucially, the orientation program provides the new arrivals with the opportunity to go into fresher's week and university life a bit more prepared.
Yet, without the program, these students might spend Fresher’s queuing in government offices and, as a result, be even more excluded.
"It is easy to overlook the amount of paperwork international students must go through when they arrive in Britain."
This only really applies to students from outside the EU of course.
Also, not a single word on the ISA, even though you interviewed Daria who is a committee member?
The ISA did not organise international week! This article doesn't cover every single reason for the lack of international intergration, rather just explores orientation week. Daria is not only an ISA member, she was a part of the orientation team!!
Indeed, #2 is right!
I've heard many people suggest that International Week (organised by the University) fosters the segregation of international students and that Overseas students should be making more of an effort to integrate. This reasoning overlooks a number of key factors:
1) Not all international students are the same. By which I mean, we are united by our foreign-ness more than anything - yes since moving off-campus I have lived mostly with 'foreign friends'but none of us even live on the same continent outside of term time. And, frankly, only those who can't go home at weekends because home is far away can truly sympathise with this.
2)When people DO stick with people from their home country it's mostly because they are homesick or have difficulties with English and find COMFORT in these friendships. Is that wrong?! And furthermore, shouldn't we be asking *why* they find it difficult to integrate rather than point the finger at the pre-sessional orientation which appease qualms in many a student's (and parents') mind?
3) Many of 'us' pay overseas fees and have dreamed of studying in the UK's prestigious Universities and are therefore surprised to find that fresshers week (and most of fresher year) is hardly about academics and mostly about alcohol.
#1: I'm an EU student myself, and even though the oversees students had to sort out more paperwork, I had to do quite a few things as well: sorting out a bank account, obtaining an national insurance number, getting an English phone or sim card, etc. Also, as Fiona already mentioned in her article, international, including EU students, mostly cannot afford the luxury to arrive at uni by car, and have to spend a lot more time shopping for some essentials, such as pots, pans and cutlery. During Freshers week, there is simply no time for things like this, or you will miss out on a lot of socialising.
Also, I agree with Marie that the friendship of internationals can be a comfort, because they understand how it is to live in a foreign country.
For me, international orientation was the perfect start to my life at uni. At the moment, I'm still living with all internationals, most of them I met in international week last year. However, this does not mean that I'm not integrating: I even started eating chips with salt and vinegar 
#2 is not right actually. First of all, it's Orientation Week and the ISA does help. International Week on the other hand takes place during the Spring Term and is in fact organised by the ISA.
#4 makes a good point. There are so many things, such as organising national insurance numbers etc, that all people of specific countries - or all international students - have to do that it makes sense to be affiliated with them. It also makes sense to have friends who share cultural values with you and the like... but it's incredibly important that it's not the ONLY friendship group that people have.
Think of it in reverse: if you were going to university in France, would you not make friends with any British people you meet more easily than with the vast majority of French students there? I know that I would find it easier to chat with a British student about a Man City v Man United derby, about Jensen Button winning the Grand Prix, about November 5th displays, about plans for Easter etc. Anything that isn't a dramatic part of French culture; watching FA Cup final, for example..?
Anywho. International integration is important; cultural integration is important (I know a lot of "BME" students who hang around with each other and seem to not have many "caucasian" friends - inverted commas to indicate I'm trying to use the correct language and to hope people excuse any accidental slip-up!) and it's also important to maintain links to your own culture to avoid any Paris Syndrome or homesickness getting the better of you, imho
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