From seeing new faces to attempting to find the right classes, starting at a new school can be nerve-wracking for some. However, for some international students on campus, daily school life can be especially challenging. 

Junior Ayush Awasthi understands all too well as his family moved over 8,000 miles from India to Frisco. 

“I knew English well since my mom was an English teacher, but since I didn’t have an American accent, it was harder for me to communicate with people,” Awasthi said. “I also didn’t have many friends yet so I also had this pressure to find friends on the first day.”

While some students and educators are dealing with the academic fallout from COVID-19 , there are also some social implications that arose from the pandemic. 

“I moved during COVID so I didn’t have much friends and it was hard for me because I was at home the whole time and I didn’t know much people for the first one year of my life in America,” Awasthi said. “The hardest part was just getting used to the accents and making new friends.”

International students are faced with the difficulty of immersing themselves in American culture in such a short period of time. Cultural norms, learning informal language, and educational differences are just the start of the variations people from other countries feel when moving to an English speaking country.

Moving from Argentina to Mexico to Canada and then finally settling in the United States, Spanish teacher Marcela Vicente has found the transition to an English speaking country difficult.

“First thing I had to do was start learning English and it was very hard,” Vicente said. “I was taking classes all day long and I was immersing myself in the culture, like watching more movies and TV shows in English and then I was trying to read in English. I was trying to do different things in English just to practice the language.”

Not only did Vicente run into a language barrier, but she found the culture of these various countries more different and unique than what she was used to in her hometown in Argentina.

“[The culture] in Mexico was very similar,” Vicente said. “We speak the same language but we have different accents and have different words for the same thing, but it was in general very similar. Here in the United States and Canada there were a lot of differences. The celebration and the closeness with family.”

Another challenge many newcomers face is learning the informal aspects of the English language such as slang.

“When I was first learning English I was watching a lot of Friends so with that I was learning a lot of that slang,” Vicente said. “Now, it has been changing a lot so sometimes students are talking and saying things that are, I’m not sure what they are saying because the slang is different than what I was learning.”

Nonetheless, Vicente believes that these experiences have helped her teach students a foreign language.

“I can better understand the struggle students have trying to learn a new language because I had the same problem,” Vicente said. “I know and I can give some insight on how important it is to learn a new language and I can be more empathetic.”

Similarly, sophomore Dayna Ma learned informal English through immersion in American culture.

“I mainly learned [slang] through my friends and school,” Ma said. “When they explained them, it was complicated but eventually you get the hang of it.”

Slang is just part of the adjustment for many international students as there can also be significant differences in the education system.

“In Argentina you get put in a class and you stay in the class for like all years from elementary school,” Ma said. “But here, you get to know more people, especially since there are like 500 students per grade. Here, it is a lot more competitive so I guess it was hard because I had to push myself to really have to study for my classes.”

From watching shows in English to joining confidence inducing extracurriculars, international people have found various methods to immerse themselves in American culture. This is especially true with Awasthi who is a part of the debate team.

“Debate has not really helped me with my English skills but more like how to speak,” Awasthi said. “I feel more confident speaking in front of people especially since I don’t have an American accent.”