According to the University of Missouri’s Open Doors Report, over 1000 international students were enrolled at the university in 2024, hailing from countries all over the world. One challenge that some students have in common is that of maintaining connections with their family and friends overseas.
International students primarily use digital messaging apps to reach home. Daisy Zhan and Selina Wang are both journalism majors in their third year of a 2+2 program between Mizzou and South China University of Technology. For them, communication looks like daily updates with their families, ranging from from video calls to photos of the meals they cook in their apartment. They connect with home mainly over WeChat, as firewalls and connectivity issues can make other platforms inconvenient to use.
Zhan strives to call her family as often as possible, but a 13-hour time difference makes it difficult. She described a situation when her credit card stopped working and she was unable to reach her parents because it was the middle of the night in China. According to Zhan, the communication gap can be a source of frustration.
Wang, meanwhile, hasn’t called her family in nearly a month.
“[There’s] the time difference — and my parents [are] busy [with] work — so we cannot match our schedules,” she said.
Despite this, she feels her family’s love across the distance. “My family really supports me and believes that I can finish and graduate on time,” she said.
Zhan noted that there is a sense of relief that comes with being able to express herself in her native tongue, Mandarin, when she calls home. She worries that her mother, who is her first point of contact, may feel bored at home.
“Sometimes she sends me messages in our family group chat, and when she does I reply right away because I feel like that’s her way of reaching out,” Zhan said.
Because the process of traveling home is quite time-consuming, Zhan and Wang likely won’t go home to see their families this semester. They intend to spend their breaks exploring the U.S. instead.
Krishna Karra, an international student from Hyderabad, India, hasn’t been home since transferring to Mizzou a year ago. Karra is a senior computer science major also participating in a 2+2 program.He’s in the process of conducting research vital to his future career. Between classwork, job-hunting, and research, Karra tries to call his family every day if time permits, but due to obstacles like the 10.5-hour time difference between Missouri and Hyderabad, sometimes phone calls aren’t an option.
“I can’t call [my parents] in the daytime, so I just wait until the evening or the morning,” Karra said. Sometimes, he misses the call altogether due to work.
These students can find themselves feeling overwhelmed and lonely, especially at times when contact with family overseas may grow infrequent. When dealing with communication gaps, homesickness, or other personal challenges, Karra recommends that his fellow international students rely on friends and support systems on campus.
Karra is the Publicity Director of the Missouri International Student Council, which organizes events for students of various cultures to meet and interact with one another. Karra also says that finding mentors, like upperclassmen international students, can also help with the transition into life at Mizzou.
Given that many international students are not able to travel home for semesters or more at a time, the support and communities they build at Mizzou are especially important. For example, Paul Terraillon, an exchange student from Lyon, France, and a senior in foreign languages, has already discovered a lot about American culture and customs from his roommate, and he’s eager to learn more.
“I think the first weeks changed my perspective on life a little,” Terraillon said. “I can learn from the way they do things in America. I can take all the good things that are not in my French lifestyle and apply it in my new lifestyle.”
No matter the medium, maintaining connections overseas is challenging – and for international students, the saying that “home is only a phone call away” isn’t always true. Building new friendships and communities at Mizzou is one way for international students to remember that even if they are thousands of miles away from home, there is always someone nearby to “answer their call.”
Edited by Sabrina Pan | [email protected]
Copy edited by Alana Sheba and Emma Harper | [email protected]
Edited by Maya Bensaoud | [email protected]
Edited by Alex Gribb | [email protected]
