International Flare At VCSU

The article I read this week was found on VOANews.com. It is the story of how and why a foreign student chose Valley City State University. It was interested to hear that many of the reasons Fakira Soumaila chose VCSU coincides with why many students choose VCSU.

Fakira indicates that she wanted to study in the United States and size was a determining factor in her decision. She talks about the teachers being very willing to help in and out of class. She also talks about the friendly staff helping to integrate her into the campus and city community. Being in smaller class sizes helped Fakira quickly improve her English speaking skills.

Fakira’s goal is to be a pediatrician and she will go to medical school when she graduates from VCSU. She feels VCSU is challenging her to be prepared for that next step.

It’s interesting that no matter where students are from, they choose the college they choose for much of the same reasons. If you poll VCSU students, you’ll hear that smaller class size is a big reason for coming here.

VCSU is fortunate to have students like Fakira willing to travel to a country and quite small town she’s never been to before to gain her education. Not only is she getting what she wants, but those on campus are learning from her also. My family has been host family to her and we have learned so many things about her home country as well and her growing up years in Rome. Because I’ve not been overseas, this was a great opportunity for me as well as for her. I feel richer having Fakira and other foreign students at VCSU and I hope I return that to them as well.

I was fortunate enough to be involved in a Holiday dinner with the foreign students on campus. After dinner they played Taboo – a game where you try to get your team to say a word you describe without saying a provided list of words. It was amazing to hear the students from various countries talking so fast I couldn’t understand much of what they said while they had no problem at all.