Culture shock. It can be the feeling of hating where you are, missing the familiarity of your home or making a lot of mistakes in a place you’ve never been, but learning along the way.

It’s the feeling of personal disconnect when moving to an entirely new country, and at Syracuse University, three international students reflect on their adjustment — or lack thereof — to American culture.

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Yanjun Li doesn’t like Syracuse University.

The 20-year-old freshman finance major from Guilin, China doesn’t like the weather and the architecture of the campus. Li, who goes by Sophia in the United States, said SU was her safety school and that during her first semester on campus, she felt as if she lost her purpose by coming to Syracuse.

“Last semester I felt really dumb and lost and had some depression. In high school, I really wanted to get into prestigious university and had a purpose,” Li said. “Then I came to this school and I didn’t like my classes. I just feel that I don’t really know what I want to do with my future.”

Now in the spring semester, Li is becoming more adjusted to life at SU. She appreciates her classes and focuses on her studies, despite being surrounded by the college party culture. Li wants to start writing, but is worried the Chinese-American language barrier could pose problems. Even though she isn’t a native English speaker, Li said she is working toward getting into the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

When Li was 13, she came to the United States through a program that allowed her to tour schools. She said she fell in love with students’ freedom to speak, and how schools were much more progressive in American than in China. She attended Vincentian Academy in Pittsburgh for four years, but is finding new things in the U.S. today that surprise her.

“In China, girls and boys cannot just go up to each other and hug each other and say ‘Hi.’ It’s prohibited in school — especially puppy love. That was the biggest change in high school,” Li said. “But of course, I miss my family a lot. The first two years of being in high school were the worst when I missed my family and the environment from home. For now, I have independence.”

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During her first two weeks at SU, Ioana Turcan didn’t have any money, a blanket or a close group of friends. But she did find one item in Syracuse that was familiar to her — vodka from Moldova, which borders Romania — her home country.

“I was really happy to find it because the last bottle I bought was when I was 18,” Turcan said. “The factory was supposed to be closed, so I thought I had bought my last bottle. But I found it on Westcott, so I was like, ‘I have to send a picture to my father.’”

Turcan, a film graduate student, said coming from Gherla, Romania to the U.S. was an adventure, especially on her own. Turcan said most of the international students know each other, but being European, it’s difficult to stand apart from Americans. So for the first few weeks, she was on her own.

Now, Turcan said she has a close-knit group of friends who are all international students. Besides meeting people from around the world, Turcan said she finds inspiration in the labs and resources around campus. She no longer feels in constant competition with her classmates, like she did in Romania, but fulfilled by her projects.

“It’s insane, but in a good way,” Turcan said. “I’m still on my honeymoon — as people call it — because I love it. I’m passionate about photography and film and video, so there’s too much to do. It’s great.”

Turcan said her favorite part about being in America is the opportunity to experience food from all cultures, as well as getting involved in clubs on campus, like boxing. But one thing she misses most from Romania is dancing until 6 a.m. with her friends and eating breakfast after, something she hasn’t been able to do here.

“Things are not so limited here,” Turcan said. “There’s not so much struggle for something — everyone gets something, or finds something, like I did.”

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Gabriela Escalante is a 27-year-old senior, but most people wouldn’t know it due to her outgoing personality and enthusiasm for life.

Before Escalante came to SU, she was an au pair for two families in the United States. The El Salvador native decided that she wanted to stay in America to study, and that SU was the right fit.

“Everything seemed to be a lot bigger here — everything was just really big. I wanted to be in an entrepreneurship program, so I just started Googling it,” said Escalante, a marketing and entrepreneurship double major. “And then I just came here. When I first came to Syracuse, I missed orientation, so I just came in and went to class right away. It was really scary.”

The biggest struggle for Escalante was communication, as her native language is Spanish. So she came up with a new method to talk in class and make friends — she would write whatever she wanted to say to make sure it made sense, and would then say it aloud.

Three years later in Syracuse, Escalante has acclimated to the American lifestyle. She calls the Couri Hatchery in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management the most comfortable place for her, because it is a place of learning and failing for entrepreneurs. She said professors in the U.S. are much more approachable than in El Salvador, and that it contributes to her success.

“The more times I failed, the more times I learned,” Escalante said. “I’m blessed because 98 percent of the population (in El Salvador) doesn’t get to go to universities. I appreciate the little things now.”

Published on January 29, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Jackie: jmfrere@syr.edu | @jackie_frere