University in a Foreign Country

Inspired by Dina WD (brand new to me) who wrote in a post about her struggles as a student in a university in Texas when she came from France on a single-entry student visa.  Briefly summed, the deal she had was:

• She could only work 20 hours/week at most for $5.15/hr. (which I assume is minimum wage at the time)
  • She was not able to work off-campus because of her immigration status
• The university took 80% of her paycheck each month for room, which left her with only $80/mo.
  • She skipped breakfast most of the time, and mostly ate spaghetti and pasta sauce
• In between semesters, she had to work on-campus because of the type of visa she had, while other international students could go home and visit their families

Moral of her story was: visit her post and find out.  It would make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

I hope I am not barging into this couple’s lives if they happen to come across this.  I took a class with a couple of Chinese international students and became one of their FB friends afterward.  I saw that she uploaded a lot of pictures of her and her boyfriend having a lot of fun in the U.S. with some of the closer friends they made here in the U.S., in between semesters.

I assume they had money in order to enjoy such fun and dine at some locations that I checked out online, and was too expensive for me.  I recall one of them told me the two of them traveled through some of the U.S.’s tourist sites, such as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Park.  I have been in the U.S. for x amount of years and I have still never been to these places, mostly because I cannot afford it.

Despite not being able to afford a lot of things, I always went home to see my family.  Without them, I do not know whether I could survive college.

The moral of my post is: some of us go through college (and life) harder than others, so do what you can.

Advertisements