When I got my acceptance to the University of Virginia, I cried.
I cried because it was not just an email with a fancy header to me, but rather words that were going to change my life forever. I was going to leave my home of the better part of almost two decades — Lahore, Pakistan — for a new life in Charlottesville, Virginia. I had never travelled across the Atlantic, nor visited the States, let alone attended the coveted Days on the Lawn or seen the University. But that was of little consequence. Just getting the opportunity to attend one of the best schools in the United States was a dream. However, as with all dreams — were things too good to be true? For the international student community on Grounds — definitely.
I consider myself fortunate compared to those who had to leave their homelands and come to a new country without a friend or well wisher nearby. I had family in Virginia who offered immeasurable support to help me get settled, but I’m afraid I can’t say the same for the University as an institution. I first realized this during International Student Orientation.
At the very beginning of Orientation, my family and I were expected to know where the Chemistry Building, Ern Commons, Newcomb Hall and Alumni Hall were, to name just a few. The fact that the International Student Orientation was just juxtaposed together with Move-In Day created further confusion. Because many of the students moving in had already visited Grounds before, we, the internationals, were left to fend for ourselves, suffering from the assumption that “everyone already knows the way around.” I’d say that Google Maps and the Virginia app — neither of which were recommended to me from an affiliate of the University — were of greater utility to me than any of the “guidance” I was provided at Orientation. Doesn’t this strike you as ironic for an institution with a tour group as influential and renowned as the University Guides? And that was only the beginning.
Every other Orientation helped new students schedule their classes for the upcoming semester. Committed students shared these reassurances, quoting their experience on the Class of 2017 Facebook page.
The reality was different for the international students. Before Orientation, I received an email from the University saying that I should have already enrolled myself in classes, magically. Without any orientation help, course selection mentorship, tips on how to work the nightmare that is SIS. Nothing. Only the impending threat that if I wasn’t enrolled in at least 12 credits by the class deadline, my visa privileges would be revoked. No pressure.
Can you imagine switching to a completely foreign system of education and being expected to master it in the first attempt? Of course not. It takes time and tutelage, none of which was invested in the international students during their Orientation.
The University’s lack of concern for its international community’s unique circumstances resurfaced in many other forms. I personally had to deal with a good deal of grief at the hands of the health system. Not all countries use health insurance to get treatment, and I think the University did an inadequate job informing students from foreign countries about exactly what our insurance is, what benefits it affords us, and how it works in the context of Medicare. It would save us the bitter surprise when hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of medical bills flood our mailboxes. What’s co-pay? What exactly do I have to pay in addition to having insurance? You should probably tell us. After all, isn’t the University’s primary job to educate?
Here is another example of unexpected encumbrance: everyone has to box up and move out. It’s the reality of college. But some of us don’t have parents who can drive on down, help us pack and take our possessions back into the safety of our own homes. I was among the hundreds of other out-of-state students who don’t get that luxury. What we could at least have are some provisions for our belongings, access to on-Grounds storage units, or companies contracted by the University to offer subsidized storage access to its out of state students. Shockingly enough, these don’t exist and students are left to their own devices juggling finals, move out deadlines, storage hassles and packing singlehandedly while trying to catch the next flight back home.
Beyond these general reasons, I found the lack of a functioning Pakistani Student Association, and the nonexistence of the UVAClub for Pakistan before I joined in as its first ambassador (despite numerous alumni bearing that nationality) insulting and debasing. As a Pakistani, dealing with these issues alone made me feel irrelevant in the grand scheme of the University’s concerns and explains why more people from my country choose to apply elsewhere.
Dealing with these unfortunate factors made my first year as an international student, 8,000 miles away from home, unnecessarily difficult. These are serious issues impacting diversity, representation and the cosmopolitan environment of the school that the University’s peer institutions have combated with a degree of success, issues that can be remedied with a little attention on part of the University.
Noor Waheed is a second-year in the College.
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