Camosun College has 1,900 international students, according to its website. Many of these students are a long way away from home. Travelling to a new country, learning a new language, and integrating into another culture is an exciting process, but it can also be daunting. The very nature of integrating into a completely new culture with an unfamiliar language produces a challenge for foreign students. Higher tuition fees, communication barriers, and the possible lack of close family supports mean that the international student experience can be full of difficulties. Additionally, the pressure to succeed for their families back home can be a huge stressor.
International students represent only 10 percent of the Camosun student population, which results in them being shoehorned into an academic system primarily designed with domestic students in mind. Consequently, there’s a distinct possibility that the process of integration is rougher than it could be.
I wanted to search for the loose seams, the ragged edges: where are the shortcomings? What can be improved?
Second-year Business Administration student Prashant Giri feels that Camosun’s approach to medical coverage for international students is too hands-off. Enrolment in provincial health-care insurance is mandatory for international students who are here for six months or longer, but Camosun can’t enrol for them.
“The way they tell you about the MSP insurance, it’s disastrous,” says Giri, who is from India. “They suggest to you that you can [enrol for MSP], but it’s up to you.”
Giri believes that students may not see the larger picture and says that health-care coverage should be rolled up into student fees to prevent students from neglecting it.
“$75 a month is a lot,” he says. “You can buy two weeks’ groceries for that. Most students are not going to enrol for it, and what if some accident happens?”
Second-year Marketing student Serena Cizmecigil, who is from Turkey, believes that there should be more effort to integrate international students with domestic students.
“More workshops or orientation programs taken during the year, maybe once a month gathering international students with the local students, because most of the time international students are gathering with [each other], so there should be some effort from the school to combine the two groups together,” she says. “The social supports definitely need it.”
Giri says that integrating into Canadian culture while learning English is difficult, and he feels that the communication gap could be addressed.
“You can learn English, but you cannot learn how to effectively communicate in English, because communication and language are two different things,” he says, while also identifying that language differences change how people interact. “The way I would console my girlfriend is different than the way I would console someone here.”
ELD student Ruby Nguyen, from Vietnam, feels that international tuition is too much and that it puts stress on her relationship with her parents, who pay her tuition.
“Whenever I [talk to] my parents, they complain, ‘Why do [you] study so slow, it costs a lot of money!’ But I have no choice at Camosun,” she says.
The issue of tuition has long been contentious among international students: for example, the Camosun website currently lists as the cost of a Business Administration degree $17,809 for a domestic student and $61,240 for an international student. According to Camosun International director Christiaan Bernard in a previous Nexusstory (“The cost of being an international student at Camosun College,” January 18, 2017), the extra income is not profit; it all goes back into providing services for students. I asked Giri if he feels that his extra investment is fulfilled through additional services for international students.
“The services international students get is the same as domestic students,” says Giri. “Everything they do specifically for international students is only for the first three days of orientation, and that’s it. They’ll ask you to play some games or something, but that, too, is only between the international students.”
But with regards to tuition, Giri is more frustrated by the fact that Camosun predominantly charges international students per semester, not per course.
“If you have three subjects, you’ll pay the same amount you pay for five subjects,” he says. “If the student only has the capacity to do three subjects at a time, he still has to pay [the full cost]. It gets too expensive for people who don’t have the capability to do five courses.”
Part 2 of this story will feature Camosun College and the Camosun College Student Society responding to these students’ criticisms and will be online on Friday, December 13.
Correction: We originally said that Camosun student Serena Cizmecigil is from Syria; she is from Turkey. We apologize for the mistake.