Related Works

Research into Related Works

Parallel to the interview two of us, Dominik and I, had the task to look into related works. We focused at first on other universities and colleges and their international programmes.

This research paper served as our main source of information on our topic of international students in a foreign environment. 
An Australian research team interviewed a total of 200 international students in 2007 and concluded that 65% suffered under loneliness during their exchange period. Their papers looked into the causes and possible solutions, which helped us solve many unanswered questions already.

The research paper emphasised on the following:
  • Networks are desirable but not a universal cure of loneliness
  • Social networks are voluntary and therefore erratic
  • Most internationals with problems turned to local friends instead of ones in their home country → this shows that having local friends is of upmost importance
  • Same culture networks is a lazy strategy and only function as ghettos → they often don't solve loneliness
  • Students should be better informed about the services already available to them
  • Relations with locals might be the key to moving forward to loneliness → activities designed to bring local students together with international students are a solution
The most important information we found in these papers and with the interview with the local Swiss students was:

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

Many friends didn't solve loneliness for the international students - they prospered under fewer friendships that were more meaningful. The Swiss local students also expressed the importance of quality during our interviews with them.

Oxford Swiss Society is an example of a club which caters for Swiss students in Oxford and local students who are interested is Swiss culture. It brings the two together with activities and events.

→ We observed that many clubs were actually inactive and dead. This suggested that creating many thematic networks will not be a solutions for the long-run. The example of Oxford also supports the findings of the Australian research papers.

The New Zealand's governmental education website listed three different solutions that have seen successes when it came to bringing locals and international students together.
  1. Peer-Pairing: One local and one international student are paired based on interests, thereby allowing them to get to know each other by completing activities in their spare time. The ZHdK has a similar programme (the buddy programme), however, they do not pair by interests (often the students aren't even from the same department) and are not requested to meet up regularly outside of the course. A good example of the peer-pairing system is the BRIDGE system in Wisconsin, USA.
  2. Intercultural Cooperations: Project groups are created with a balance of international and local students. Through a project, these people get to know each other. Apparently, however, this system does not work as well as the others as "forced" groupings for projects often aren't welcomed with students.
  3. Residential programmes: This is where an international student lives at a local's residence for their duration of their stay. The residential programme also works on pairing interests. It is, however, only a good solution for internationals who are staying for a short period of time. Once they are staying for a longer period of time, this programme is not as suitable.
Local church communities in the US have their own website that focuses on how to contact international student so that they can bring their faith closer to them. This is a complete different aspect of communicating with internationals, but for us a rather forced method.

An example of a company in Portugal that solemn focuses on integrating international people.