Jia Cao Democratic Listening Project

Crystal Chow, an international student, shares her experiences growing up in the US. She adjusted to a new culture and language with help from friends and regular phone calls with her parents. Being away from her parents at a young age made her more independent and better at communicating with others. During the pandemic, she had to continue her education online, causing a lack of socialization. As an international student, she had to fulfill different requirements for college applications, including language tests. Her agent negatively impacted her mental health by belittling her and manipulating her choices. Despite the challenges, Crystal has grown and learned to trust herself. Overall, her story gives insight into the experiences of international students. So today we have here Crystal Chow, my roommate. Hi, I'm Crystal. Today we are going to discuss her experience as an international student and the struggles and obstacles that she had to face throughout her years and how it helped her grow as a person and how it impacts her decisions. So how old were you when you first started studying in the U.S.? I was 13 entering eighth grade when I first came to the U.S. And before I came to New York, I was studying in California. Well, 13 is a young age. How did you adjust to that? I attended boarding school when I was in kindergarten. And until seventh grade, for most of my week, I don't get to see my parents. I live at school. And later when I came to the U.S., I had met a lot of international students who had very similar experience with me. It was hard at first as we were facing a completely different culture and language, but my friends around me gave me a lot of help. And also I always have phone calls with my parents. They support me a lot. So to be honest, I feel like to adapt to a new environment is only a matter of time. Because of my experience of living in boarding school, it didn't take a lot of time for me to adapt. I also lived with an American host family, so it was easier for me to understand the culture. So I guess it seems like you were really lucky to meet a lot of people with the same experience. So my next question is how do you feel about being away from your parents at a young age impact how you are as a person today? I feel like it made me to become a more independent person. I have more of my own opinion and it helps me focus more on what I want rather than what my parents want of me. And my experience also helped me a lot on communicating with strangers. I'm not afraid of talking to people and making new friends. Well, then there's definitely pros and cons to this situation. Even though you weren't able to spend a lot of time with your family growing up, but you were able to be more independent and be more social with others. Yeah, that's true. In the previous questions, we focused more on your personal life and experience. Now let's move on to a new topic. The pandemic was a special experience for everyone. Understanding that you were in the United States when COVID hit, what was your experience during COVID and while still being a high school student? Because my family was overseas, I was one of the first ones to leave the U.S. when COVID just hit. And I still had to continue my education via Zoom, which was a hard time for me. Because of the time difference, my classes start at 12 a.m. and until like 7 a.m. So I never had much time to spend with my parents and friends. Because of the time difference, for almost two years, I didn't have any socialization with people. Wow, so even though I wasn't experiencing COVID in a different country, but I also lacked socializing with my friends because of health and emotional issues. Let's talk about your college application. How was your college application experience knowing that international students might have to fulfill a different requirement than domestic students? As an international student, the biggest difference between us and the domestic students is that we have to take language tests, such as bilingual or TOEFL. Besides that, I had an agent that helped me to apply to college and guide me through my high school experience. But unfortunately, he had impacted my mental health negatively. Can we elaborate a little more on that? He often belittled me and wanted me to change my college choice so that other students have a higher chance to be accepted to the college. The most common phrase that he had said to me was, you are not good enough for this college, they will not accept you. He was also manipulating my mom, which caused me to be unable to change my agent. How is that? Because he was my agent throughout my high school, he knows more about me as a student. And it is already 12th grade, so changing my agent now is beneficial for me. This was a terrible experience for me. However, after I realized his action, I started developing my thoughts and ignoring his opinion. Because of him, I was able to realize that not everyone that are there to help you are actually there to help you. I know that other international students might have some difficulties on transferring their high school grades because they were in a different country for high school. But since I spent all of my high school life in the U.S., I don't have this kind of worries. So most of my application experience are like the other domestic kids. I'm so sorry to hear that. Thank you so much, Crystal, for your time and sharing your story. Today we have learned about a Chinese international student's experience from studying in the U.S. at a young age and how it was for her during COVID and her college application experience. As we can see that there are definitely pros and cons in every situation. I guess the pros for Crystal is that she's definitely grown into a person that has her own opinion and knows what she wants. Though that most of us doesn't have this experience as being an international student in the room, we are able to see a different point of view today.