Cha-Lin Liu, a Taiwanese international student, is still amazed
by the vibrancy of UCLA when she walks across campus.
“Every day when I pass Bruin Walk there are so many
people,” the 30-year-old doctorate student says.
“It’s full of vitality.”
To get involved in the lively UCLA community, Liu and many other
foreign students take part in the International Connections
Program, which matches international students with American
“ambassadors.”
The program is offered by the Dashew Center for International
Students and Scholars. Local UCLA students assist the international
students as peer ambassadors, and other members of the UCLA
community take part as community ambassadors.
The incoming international students who take part in the program
met their ambassadors for the first time at a reception on Oct. 22.
In the weeks since, the participants have started to meet
individually.
Liu had her first outing with her ambassador this past
weekend.
Through the program, Liu was matched with Doris Geller-Lee, a
79-year-old resident of Beverly Hills. Geller-Lee picked up Liu and
Shoko Nishido, an international student from Japan, at noon on
Saturday.
Over coffee at Starbucks in Westwood, Geller-Lee announced her
plans for the day: “I want to take them to some lovely Los
Angeles sites, either the Water Gardens in Santa Monica or the
Korean neighborhood,” she said.
Liu’s educational career has taken her from Taiwan to
Germany and now to UCLA.
After finishing high school in Taipei, Taiwan, she went to the
University of Arts in Berlin. After graduation, she returned to
Taiwan to teach for two years.
Her decision to enroll in a doctorate program brought her to
UCLA. She chose the university because she qualified for a
scholarship and also because “the weather here is pretty
good.”
In Germany, Liu took part in a similar connections program, so
she liked the concept of having the same opportunity at UCLA.
“It is very helpful for me to know the customs of the
country,” she said, referring to the benefits of the
program.
Community ambassador Geller-Lee has been with the program since
its early stages in the 1950s, when she took UCLA evening
courses.
“I met a few students from Africa, and I invited them to
my home,” she recalls. “Then I found out there was a
program.”
In the early years, Geller-Lee offered international students
her extra bedroom if they were in need of housing.
Geller-Lee joined the connections program as an ambassador to
help foreign students become acquainted with American customs and
to make them feel at home.
She said she also believes the program has many advantages for
her. Over the years, she has built a large international network of
friends.
“I have acquaintances all over the world to whom I still
correspond,” she said. She has traveled to Japan, France and
other countries to reunite with some of the students. Her
international friends have shown their appreciation.
“I’m a godparent to many children of the
students,” she said with a smile.
Reyna Alorro coordinates the International Connections Program
at the Dashew Center and is responsible for almost 300 participants
this year.
“It’s one of our flagship programs,” Alorro
said. “ICP best exemplifies the Dashew Center’s mission
to assist international students in their adjustment to UCLA and
Los Angeles and to build bridges among the international and
domestic communities.”
In order to keep track of the groups’ meetings, Alorro has
the participants fill out logs of their activities.
Alorro mostly looks for similar interests when matching
international students and ambassadors. If possible, she also tries
to match participants by their field of study so there will be
academic benefits. She added that it is easier to find
undergraduate ambassadors than graduate ones.
The international student population at UCLA is one of the
largest in the country. A recent report published by the Institute
of International Education ranks UCLA as No. 9 among the top 25
U.S. universities for international student enrollment.
The University of Southern California claims the top spot, but
with 4,320 foreign students enrolled, UCLA ranks as the only other
California university in the top 25.
While enrollment numbers of international students have slightly
dropped across the nation, USC and UCLA have been able to go
against the trend by increasing their foreign student
population.
Rick Tuttle, the executive director of the Dashew Center,
stressed the importance of having foreign students at UCLA,
considering the large number of graduate international students.
“Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of graduate students are
international students,” he said.
Tuttle also praised the number of programs available at the
Dashew Center to assist the international students with their lives
at UCLA.
“My impression is that the scope of what we do is
relatively unique,” Tuttle said.
The Dashew Center has offered a host family program since the
1950s; it later grew into an ambassador program in the late
’70s and early ’80s. In the past years, the connections
program has grown in popularity, he said.
While USC offers a similar connections program, UC
Berkeley’s International House does not. For USC’s
program, the “Thanksgiving Match-Up,” community members
volunteer to host international students on Thanksgiving.
Mary Dang, a fourth-year English student, is a peer ambassador
in UCLA’s program. She knows what it feels like to be an
international student because she spent a year in Durham, England,
as part of the Education Abroad Program.
About her first weeks abroad, she said, “To be honest, it
was horrible. I did not initially enjoy my time there.” The
thing that disturbed her most was “just the thought of not
knowing anybody, not having any friends.”
In her position as peer ambassador, she attempts to prevent her
experience from happening to the international students. She
invited her two international students to her home and also takes
them to other events. On one of the outings, they went to see the
show “Blush” at Royce Hall, which, to Dang, seemed
“risque.” She said she feared one of the foreign
students was not comfortable watching the performance.
“I think I give them a link to the university and tell
them things that they may not hear from other organizations,”
Dang said. Another goal for her is to debunk the American
stereotypes, namely “that we’re loud, dumb, obnoxious
and not sophisticated.”
Concerning her experience in England, Dang added, “I did
make friends, but they ended up being international
students.”
Some international students at UCLA are familiar with this
phenomenon. Nishido, the 34-year-old graduate student from
Geller-Lee’s group, has witnessed the same pattern in her MBA
program. Many Japanese students attending the UCLA Anderson School
of Management form “a little community,” she said.
Coming from a very small school in Japan, she enjoys
UCLA’s large student population and wants to assimilate with
other cultures as much as she can. “I don’t want to
rely on the Japanese students too much,” she said.
Comparing her experiences in Germany and the United States, Liu
concluded: “The American people are more friendly to
foreigners.” While studying in Germany, she found it harder
to adapt to the culture than in the United States, where “it
is easier to get involved in social life.”