What is the Difference between American and Foreign Students’ Leisure?

Published January 26, 2019

Education in the United States is considered to be one of the best in the world. There are many top-rated universities here that ensure great carrier possibilities. That’s why lots of foreign students come here to study. Here they can get a high-quality and well-grounded education. There are students programs for several terms. There are also other possibilities for foreign students.

Each campus has a decent amount of foreign students that study there, and it is great. Overall, almost any campus has about 10% of students from other countries. Of course, numbers vary from place to place.

This fact contributes to cross-cultural communication. Among everything, an interesting factor is how different their leisure time is. Do they go for campus sport? Or do they stay mainly in small groups of the same ethnicity? Let’s dive into this subject and find out.

First of all, non-local students have difficulties with adjustment sometimes. They come from other culture and study practices. There are lots of students from China, India, and Europe. And if the last group is much closer culturally to the USA, the first and the second one are more distant. Main difficulties that international students face are language, new educational system, and nostalgia. After all, they’ve left their homeland and families.

In terms of academic performance, language is a pretty big issue. That’s why lots of foreigners are shy to interact with American classmates, especially at first. Some of them have a hard time learning the English language and submitting works in English. For example, coursework is hard enough as it is. Imagine doing it in a different language! Some of them Google, “Who can complete coursework for me?”; others spend a great amount of time in a college library.

Some of the recent studies show that American and foreign pupils tend to spend their leisure time separately. However, if a college offers events and different inclusive activities, it is better for cross-cultural communication. By cooperation with people of other culture, people learn to be more tolerant and not follow stereotypes. Leisure time is important for any individual as it helps to relax, relive the stress and maintain general well-being.

The difference in the preferences lies in the culture. For example, American identity is individualistic and Chinese culture is very collective. This difference might suggest that there is a great gap between those cultures when it comes to leisure preference. However, the study shows that it is not true.

Generally, students name such activities, that they do in their spare time:

• Watching TV
• Watching movies
• Reading
• Surfing the Internet
• Swimming

These activities are the same for people of any culture.  The main factor is that each of them can be done together in a group or individually. These activities are pretty simple and flexible. They are also quite inexpensive. Finances are an issue for the majority of students. Despite the great number of student sales, lots of things are still too expensive. For example, traveling or going to bars.

So, when it comes to spare time, students tend to choose the same activities despite their origins. After all, we all live in the time of globalization. We also all are really engaged in Internet communication and social media.

The difference between leisure preferences is mainly in group events. First of all, small foreign groups tend to stick together, and they don’t really interact with the American students. Secondly, American students prefer sports games, bars and movie theaters as main places of entertainment. Foreign students sometimes choose other activities, such as teach groups, Karaoke bars, events related to their culture or religion.

Although this difference will always be present, as students have different cultural backgrounds and belief systems, it would be great to interact more. The reasons are simple – multicultural groups tend to be more productive and creative. The classroom becomes a place where the clash of cultures can create something new and fascinating.

It is always great to learn something new and what can be better than communicating with foreign colleagues. Cross-cultural communication significantly contributes to science too. So it would be an amazing advantage to have inclusive events that would promote communication between various groups of students. Someone can even write coursework about it! The topic is yet to be explored and studied.