No Longer Alone: Helping International Students at W.K.C.T.C. by Dallas

No Longer Alone: Helping International Students at W.K.C.T.C. by Dallas - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

My most significant accomplishment began on a rainy night in October of 2015. I was just sitting in the bleachers at one of West Kentucky Community and Technical College’s home basketball games waiting for the game to begin when Ms. Amy Elmore, the student activity coordinator, went asking random basketball fans if they wanted to commentate the basketball game for our college’s television broadcast. She eventually asked me if I wanted to call the game, and I agreed to do so even though I was really shy. While I was calling the game, I was surprised to find out that two of W.K.C.T.C.’s players were international students.

As I learned more about the basketball team and its players, I realized how tough international students had it at my community college. These students were in a strange culture, speaking brokenly in a second language, and without any group to support them. In addition, they are not allowed to get a job outside of the college, and few scholarships are available for them, so financial pressures are often constant. With this in mind, I started helping the international students on my campus.

I began by becoming friends with one of the foreign basketball players named Pablo who was from Brazil. Later, I also met Nigerian Oluwaseun Sholola in my calculus II class last January who became my main homework partner. I have also taught him about American culture, helped him find scholarships, and encouraged him to be more involved in Phi Theta Kappa. Another Nigerian who I met while competing on W.K.C.T.C.’s cross country team needed car rides to running practices and college events, so I have been providing that service for him.

In October I joined the Iota Eta chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society and discovered that the Honors in Action project for my chapter this year was about supporting international students. Through the project I learned that international students around the country were experiencing the same problems of social barriers, homesickness, and culture shock; therefore, figuring out how to help our college’s international students would help other colleges across the nation support their own foreign students.

I was able to help the Honors in Action project by finding research on culture shock--specifically on what other colleges were doing to combat it. Following with the ideas uncovered in this research, my chapter decided to host a nature hike, coffee hours, and a student organization potluck so foreign students could bond with each other, P.T.K. members, and the college community while getting help dealing with culture shock. In addition, we have set up a student organization called the International Alliance to provide a venue for international students to meet and do activities together.

I have achieved many goals at my college including: maintaining a 4.0 grade point average, winning two essay contests, receiving a presidential merit scholarship, becoming President of my college’s Student Government Association, and being elected to the W.K.C.T.C. Board of Directors, but completing this project to help international students means mores to me than these other accomplishments. I am most proud of this endeavor because of the lasting friendships I have gained and the great impacts it has made. As a result of my and other Phi Theta Kappa members’ efforts, most of our college’s international student population has come to at least one of our events to receive support and make friends. International students also now have their own club to help them combat social barriers, culture shock, and homesickness. Our college’s international students are now primed for success and, according to each one I asked, no longer feel alone.