Members of Chico State’s faculty and staff will have the opportunity to host international students once a month for a new program called iFriend.
The host will meet with the international student a few times a month, that way the student can maintain independence while still having a reliable resource in the U.S., said Frank Li, the director of the Office of International Education.
The program, which has been developed for over a year, is set to begin in the spring, Li said.
“iFriend will serve the purpose of creating an interaction between two different cultures,” he said.
The activities that the host and the student will participate in does not matter as long as a cultural exchange occurs, said Cindy Phelps, the advisor of the International Education Department.
“Have dinner together or go to an activity or do something cultural. It can be whatever,” Phelps said. “Any time spent together with cultural exchange, that kind of thing.”
Whether it is cashing checks, getting groceries or determining what medication to get, the host will be there to help and answer any questions their international student has, she said.
“It helps students who are coming here,” Phelps said. “So they’ll have somebody who is a community resource.”
Medicine in the U.S. is very different from other cultures, so many international students have no idea what to get, she said.
“Medicine is cultural,” she said. “A lot of Asian cultures use eastern medicine, which is really natural stuff, whereas here we use Western Medicine, which is ‘Oh you have a headache? Here’s this Tylenol or Advil or Ibuprofen.’ There are all these new things and international students do not know what is what and what to pick.”
With the iFriend program, they will get the chance to see how the cultures differ, Phelps said.
“Mostly it’s the cultural stuff, like what American families do for Thanksgiving, what we do for fun on the weekends or how an American family interacts with each other at dinner time,” she said.
A host could help both homesickness and culture shock, Phelps said.
“We want to give them something to look forward to,” she said. “Some students don’t go home for two to three years.”
The hosts are limited to Chico State faculty and staff because they have already received background checks to work at the school, Phelps said.
“We want to make sure the people we are pairing these students with are not criminals or have shady backgrounds,” she said.
The next step in the development of the program is to do focus groups and surveys with faculty to see who would be interested in hosting, Phelps said.
“This is the semester where we are going to be reaching out to departments and staff and try to create interest in the program and hopefully do the pairing,” she said.
Many international students have expressed interest in meeting and forming bonds with more Americans, Phelps said.
“Most of the time when we are talking about how things are going in their personal lives here, most of them say they want to meet more American people.”
JongHun Lim, an international student from South Korea and senior marketing major, said the program will be helpful for new international students.
“This program is very nice for the international students who just came to U.S.A.,” he said. “They barely have a chance to meet an American family group, even if they meet just normal college students.”
The program will benefit Chico State staff and international students who want to get familiar with a different culture, Lim said.
“The staffs and staff members will get a new experience with new people,” he said. “The international students want to know about the cultural stuff, like holidays, food and some hobbies that are only in the states.”
Although international students could gain those experiences with American friends, it’s better in a family environment, Lim said.
“They could get those experiences with their college friends,” he said. “But, i think hanging out with family members will be more helpful to them.”
Madison Holmes can be reached at [email protected] or @madisonholmes95 on Twitter.
