Tufts Blogs

“Should I meet you at half 6 for tea?” I asked my new friend during orientation. The puzzled look that followed made me quickly restate my quest for food: “Should we meet at 6:30 for dinner?”

As an international student, moving to a different country is going to be one of the most exciting experiences of your life. And it’s also going to be one of the scariest. This August I travelled a little over 3000 miles from my small village of Holmfirth in West Yorkshire, England to come to Tufts.

For the 8 months between finding out about my acceptance right up until the moment that the taxi dropped me off outside my residential hall, I had been trying to balance the crazy emotions of excitement and nervousness:

• Will I make friends? (Yes. I will)
• Will people understand my accent? (Most of the time...And it is a great way to make friends!)
• Is maths (or to quote my American friends: “math”) the same in every country? (Yes, they both use a concerning small amount of numbers and a large amount of letters)
• Am I going to get run over crossing the road as the cars drive on the other side of the road? (Luckily no)
• Am I going to survive the New England weather? (We’re going to find out very soon if I can or not!)
• How am I going to cope without my 5 cups of tea - English breakfast of course -a day? (To be honest I’m not quite sure I am managing without it)

Ultimately though, the excitement always won in the battle for how I was feeling.

One thing that I have learned from this journey is that it’s really important that you get out of your comfort zone once in a while: join a new club, take a class that you’ve never considered before or even try to create a meal at Dewick that consists of pizza, rice, pasta, curry and broccoli. Granted moving to a different country is an extreme version of getting out of your comfort zone, but from experience, moving to the US was the best decision that I could ever make. I would have never been able to take both a class in English and a class in Engineering in Crisis. So many doors are already being opened but most importantly I would have never met the incredible people that I have met here at Tufts.

As much as I love to be in the States, occasionally I need a bit of home.  I need to laugh with someone about the fact that Americans pronounce “herbs” like “erbs.” I need someone to understand me when I tell a story about when I was waiting in a queue (not a line!). Tufts’ International community has been so welcoming to help me feel a little closer to home. Understanding that many of us who participated in International Orientation, a pre-orientation for both international and US students, had never been to Tufts before, the International Center organised a campus scavenger hunt. We got competitive, formed teams and prepared to get sweaty as we ran up and down the hill to different ‘stations’ completing a series of tasks. We had to do anything from building a human pyramid to dancing with President Monaco to learning the “Tuftonia’s Day” song (which then remained in my head all week!). Every time I walk up the Memorial steps I laugh about how we had to sing “Do-Re-Mi” whilst jumping from one step to the next. The International office at Tufts is incredibly welcoming and they understand that moving away from home is hard and they understand that we might not have had the same opportunities to visit Tufts as some of the people who live closer by.  I walk into the office and I will always be greeted by people who know who I am; they really try to get to know each one of us. I’m so grateful to the international centre and community for making me feel at home.

Basically what I am saying is that yes, moving to college is scary, and yes you’re going to have your worries, but you will never regret doing it. Take that leap of faith; get outside your comfort zone because there is no feeling quite like it. And remember that if you do ever need a little reminder of home, or a little time to get away from the chaos of college, there is a whole community at Tufts that can help you do that.