• zInternationalStudents Blog

  • Wednesday, June 19, 2013

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Adequate health insurance is a prerequisite for international students at an overseas university. But do you have to sign up to the university’s own program? Can you choose your own international student health insurance? The answer is yes, but you need to make sure it fits.

International student health insurance is a mandatory requirement because universities don’t want to bear the brunt of medical bills incurred by their overseas students. You are required to have adequate insurance coverage and many people opt for the easy option of the university’s own program. But you can choose your own – just demonstrate your health insurance meets the requirements by filling out a health insurance waiver form.

Choosing your own international student health insurance gives you more choice and flexibility. Coverage can be tailored to meet your needs and include provision for hospitalization, doctor visits, surgery, prescription drugs, mental health services and optional hazardous risks and sports. You may even find a better deal for your tight student budget.

Don’t worry if you’re unsure how to deal with your university’s procedures – zInternationalStudent.com can fill in the International Student Insurance waiver form and mail it to the appropriate department at your university or institution.

During their studies abroad, international students run into a lot of challenges exclusive to foreigners, putting them at a shortcoming which hampers their academic performance most often. International students should prepare themselves systematically for their life changing experience prior to leaving their home countries, in order to avoid pitfalls. Therefore, the best thing is to have a good idea of what the experience as well as the new culture will offer in order to avoid tricky situation upon getting to the host country. Foreign students will without doubt face unforeseeable challenges, no matter how prepared they are. For that reason, when faced with difficulties in the course of their stay abroad, international students should be trained on how to use coping tools.

This piece of writing points out some of the common obstacles that international students studying in a foreign country faces and gives useful practical guide for overcoming such difficulties.

Be Conversant With the Country Before Traveling

As an international student, you must be knowledgeable about the country you are going before traveling, bearing in mind that each country has its own culture, rules and values. This will reduce shocks and surprises that can interrupt your early stage of adjustment.  For the general overview of the country you are going to study therefore, doing a simple internet search and spending some time browsing through websites is enough. On the other hand, an international student should listen to the perspective of people from the same country that lived in the host country, to obtain a better idea of what that country is all about.

Determine, Accept and Overcome Your Obstacles When You Get to that Country

Stress and tension of moving to a new country will reduce when you understand the challenges you may face. However, culture shock, language barriers, depression and difficulty in establishing friendships are common obstacles being faced by foreign students learning abroad.

Language barrier

Language barrier is the most difficult and common barrier for international students. As a matter of fact, it is hard for them to accurately say what they desire, since the majority of the students move to a country with diverse operating languages. Therefore, to overcome language barrier, international students must acknowledge the fact that acquiring a language is a long process. In other words, you must be patient and give yourself sufficient time to succeed.

Culture barrier
This causes great anxiety for international students. Culture shock consists of Honeymoon, Negotiation, Adjustment and Mastery stages, which is the process of familiarizing yourself with a new environment.

To overcome a culture barrier, try as much as possible to take part in cultural activities and enjoy the experience. Do not evaluate or find fault. In addition, be patient, positive and remember your strengths and avoid forcing yourself and other people to do things that are not natural. Seek support networks with other international students.

Complexity in Establishing Friendships

It is difficult for many people to build friendships. For example, out of the 454 participating international students studying in the United States in 2012, 38 percent had no intimate American friends and were displeased with this.

The strategies for overcoming this are that you must not isolate yourself from the company of others. Hence, be a member of different organizations and associations for international students. Furthermore, be outgoing and ensure that other people know more about you. As soon as you get to your host country, join those that have similar hobby and interests with you. To facilitate building relationships with others, look for volunteer job.

Depression

This is a psychological disorder characterized by feelings of hopelessness and sadness. Depression results from a great hardship or loss while it is one of the major challenges of international students. Regrettably, depression can make it difficult for students to adjust and get used to their new environment. Luckily, this situation that can cause learning and psychological problems can be avoided by international student when they know and seek advice and information from the right place at the right time.

To overcome depression, the first thing you must do is to seek medical attention from trained professionals. Furthermore, make your daily routine as simple as you can, in order to avoid being unnecessarily overwhelmed from day to day. Also, keep in touch with friends and family and avoid comparing yourself with others. Remain organized and never allow your school assignments mound up as this will add to your stress. Keep your eye on target as you stay positive.

Finally, it is challenging to adapt to a new environment for the majority of those that takes the conveniences of their daily lives for granted. Therefore, you must be resilient and resourceful, realizing that overcoming obstacles will make you stronger and more capable of managing future stressful situations. International students can identify the barriers they face by making use of the information provided. As a student, remember to seek assistance early so that you can fully maximize and enjoy your experience abroad.

Consider the option of enrolling in universities that offer free tuition for international students or universities with low tuition fees, if you fail to qualify for university scholarships. There are some countries that give free tuition for international students, although not as many as before. This article will identify some tuition free universities for international students.

Free Tuition Universities for International Students in Finland

In Finland, students that enrolled in the regular degree studies pay no tuition fees with exceptions, since university education is financed by the State through the Ministry of Education. Hence, the higher education institution will not charge tuition fess, if you are enrolled as a non-EU/EEA.  Nevertheless, the students in both polytechnics and universities have to pay for their books as well as other materials, including living expenses and accommodation.
Although quite a number of master’s level programs may carry tuition fees for non-EU/EEA during a five year trial period 2010 to 2014, some master’s are also free of charge. You are advised to get in touch with the relevant higher education institution directly, for necessary information on the scholarship opportunities available, if your Master’s program carries tuition fee for non-EU/EEA students and if you are a non-EU/EEA citizen.

Free Tuition Universities for International Students in Austria

You are exempted to pay tuition fees at public universities in Austria and pay 17 Euros per semester for the student union fee, if you are a citizen of a least developed country.

Free Tuition Universities for International Students in Norway

As a rule, Norwegian universities as well as state universities colleges do not charge tuition fees for international students. Nevertheless, for each semester, you have to pay a semester fee of between $50 and $100. This is applicable for all levels, together with Master’s programs, undergraduate studies and Ph.D. programs.

Online Free Tuition Universities for International Students

With the technological development that brought about the internet, you don’t have to leave your country before you can enjoy an international education. Many universities are now offering free online degree and courses. The University of the People which is a non-profit, tuition- free, online academic institution dedicated to opening access to higher education globally is the first of such university. University of the People offers online bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Management.

In an attempt to draw in more applicants, more and more scholarship programs are being advertised with the clause that no essay required. The fact that a lot of these easy programs receive numerous applications for a single scholarship award is what many of these students fail to understand. You might also be powering ball battery or playing Mega Money, with odds like that. I understand that writing a winning scholarship essay may be like a task that is impossible, while a lot of you out there may be frightened by the high word count needed for quite a lot of scholarship competitions, but when it comes to winning scholarships, submitting an essay might just be your greatest advantage. The essay will likely be the deciding factor, if you have the same grade and extra-curricular involvements with another applicant or student. Therefore, how are you going to write an excellent scholarship essay that will earn you that scholarship money?

Pool Spontaneous Ideas together

Read the scholarship essay question or prompt carefully. As soon as you understand the subject matter clearly and know what is expected of you, the next thing is for you to jot down the main point on a dry erase board or piece of paper. Begin to write down ideas or words that relate to that subject in order to come up with a great scholarship essay.

Make the idea Personal

Establish the way you can make one of the ideas more personal, now that you are equipped with some ideas for the essay subject. At this point, you need to come up with a story that slot in glimpses into your life and who you are. If you pick Let us assume that you have decided to follow the traditional way and pick the Ironman. You have to reveal how becoming Ironman for one day will help somebody you love or help you prevail over an injustice in your life. However, you will need to explain how this person has influenced your life by picking a specific event or instance that was pivotal in making you who you are today, if you decide to use a real person as your villain or hero. You can now write your scholarship essay!

Do not Digress but Stay on Point

Going off on a tangent is one of the easiest things to do when you start writing scholarship essay, it is very easy for you to get lost in the course of writing and forget the point of your essay. Hence, create an outline before you begin writing your draft, in order to prevent random thoughts from creeping into your essay. The first paragraph of your scholarship essay must be unique and interesting – ensure that it take hold of the attention of your readers and make them want to read more. Allow the body of your essay tell your story or reveal who you are because it speaks about the subject of the essay. After all said and down, close your essay with all you have learnt, including the way it will shape your future.
Finally, desist from using words you would not typically use in your everyday speech, whether you are creating a piece of fiction or writing about real-life. You should avoid using it in your essay, if you have to look up the word. On the other hand, do not submit your first draft but keep it for some days before going through it all over again. Be sure that you go through your scholarship essay severally to ensure that there are no errors therein, before you submit it. As soon as you are certain that your essay complies with the scholarship guidelines of formatting, word count, font among others and you are pleased with what you have done, you can then apply.

The most common visa for an international student is the F-1 visa. This is the student visa related to collegiate study in the US. F-1 visa offer opportunity to international students’ non-immigrant status to attend a language training program or an academic institution approved by the SEVP - Student and Exchange Visitor Program. However, minor children and spouses of a foreign national that has an F-1 visa may apply for an F-2 visa to go along with the student to the United States. Consequently, the fact that you have an F-1 visa or any type of visa does not guarantee your entry to the United States. What the visa is saying is that a U.S. consular officer or consulate at an American embassy reviewed your application and established that you are eligible to enter the country for a specific purpose.

For a lot of reasons, the visa application process can be confusing. There are quite a lot of technical steps you must take to meet the requirements of more than a few different government agencies, who are part of the decision making for admitting a student to the United States to pursue an education.
The experience of applying for visa can be annoying that some international students find it difficult to remember which form goes to which department. Let us first look at the visa application process step by step in order to simplify the process. Although the government prerequisites can change quite often, a successful application will always look as described below:

1.  The first step to take is for the student to forward an application to an SEVP approved American university. The SEVP if you wonder is a government agency under the auspices of the ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

2.  Upon your successful application and subsequent admission, the college will issue you Form I-20.

3.  You will then submit a Form I-901 together with application fee to SEVP, making use of the information from Form I-20.

4.  You will be issued a receipt of payment by SEVP.

5. The next thing is for you to schedule an interview at any consulate or U.S. embassy close to you when you have both the SEVP payment receipt and Form I-20. It is the consular to decide whether to recommend a visa for you or decline your application.

6.  You will be issued a non-immigrant visa which can be F-1 M-1 or J-1 by the Department of State.

7.  When you have completed all the processes above one after the other, you can now travel to a port-of-entry in the United States. It is at that point that your visa documents will be reviewed after when you will be admitted into the country, if they are genuine.

When it comes to attending colleges in America, international students are always at a disadvantage financially simply for the reason being that nearly all loans, scholarships and grants are set aside for the citizens of the United States of America. Nevertheless, a number of colleges are trying their effort to get the financial aid picture better for those students who are from other countries of the world.

In the United States of America, the Northern Virginia Community College is one of the leaders in attempting to offer financial aid for international students. The Northern Virginia Community College has many students in Annandale, Woodbridge, Loudoun, Manassas, Alexandra and Springfield campuses including three learning centers in ELI, Arlington and Reston. The beautiful thing about the population of the students of NVCC is that one-fourth to one-third of these students hails from other countries. Hence, NVCC is popular with many international students who have a preference for living in Northern Virginia as well as other locations in the Greater area of Washington, D. C.

It is no more news that financial aid for international students is offered to students from other countries that cannot afford to pay for college and university due to financial incapability. Scholarships, grants and loans are sources of financial aid for international students. While scholarship money and grants are not meant for repayment, students have to pay back loans granted to them at the completion of their academic program.

However, a number of scholarships come with bond which may require the beneficiary to work for an employer for an agreed duration of time or asked to pay back the value of the financial aid that was offered in form of scholarship. On the other hand, the nursing and education scholarships will require the beneficiary to serve or work in the rural areas and any beneficiary that is not ready to comply with this agreement will equally be asked to repay back the value of the support he or she collected from the scholarship. 

Financial aid for international students is a way of assisting less privileged students to fund their college or university education. This can be in form of scholarships, grants and loans. Therefore, if you belong to this group of students, do a through research for suitable financial aid that will suit your study abroad program.

 

Resources

When parents and family of foreign students are visiting the US (for pleasure or graduation ceremony) one can consider visitor insurance protection. Obtain quotes on NRIOL site.


International Student Insurance (requires student status)
Visitor Insurance (does not require student status)

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