• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Mako Fukumoto, a fourth-year world arts and cultures student, is worried about finals and graduation, but she has another pressing concern as well.

She needs to find a way to keep in touch with all her friends when she leaves the United States for her home country of Japan at the end of this academic year.

“I have a lot of friends here, and maybe I will visit them in the future, but they should definitely visit my country too,” she said.

Fukumoto is an international student, and after graduating this spring, she will be flying back home. She spent four years in the United States, two of them at UCLA.

She is not alone.

With the end of the academic year approaching, many international students are preparing to head back to their home countries after a number of years spent on the UCLA campus.

Renata Goldman, a fifth-year electrical engineering student, will be leaving the Monday after finals week for her home in Brazil.

“It’s winter break there now, so I have a lot of stuff to catch up on,” she said.

For her fifth year of college, Goldman wanted to study abroad, and UCLA was her clear favorite, she said.

“My uncle came here also as an electrical engineer to get his master’s (degree), and that sort of inclined me toward UCLA,” Goldman said.

She added that UCLA has a good reputation internationally, presenting a very attractive destination for foreign students wishing to study abroad.

Before coming to study here, many international students were aware of the generally good reputation UCLA has in their home countries, but some, like Fukumoto, had difficulty adjusting to their new life on campus.

“I love how the people are in Los Angeles, but then I kind of felt depressed between college and UCLA. My limitations of English kept me back from communicating with others,” Fukumoto said.

She added that after spending some time on campus and meeting other international students, as well as Japanese-speaking American-born students, she was able to start feeling “more at home.”

UCLA is a very diverse campus, home to many students from different countries.

“Depending on the term, we estimate that the international office serves as many as 4,320 UCLA international students,” said Lawrence Gower, director of the Office of International Students and Scholars.

This number includes students who remain in the United States for up to one year after graduation on approved work authorization.

“There is so much diversity here it is amazing. (I’ve) met people from pretty much every country in the world,” said Emma Traore, a fourth-year mathematics and economics student.

“Culturally, though, the people here are completely different from what I expected, much friendlier than I thought,” she added.

Traore came to UCLA two years ago from Burkina Faso, a West African country, after having spent two years in a community college.

The campus atmosphere still presents a bit of a culture shock for some international students.

“It’s completely different from my university in Japan,” said Yasuyo Nagano, a fourth-year political science student, who will be going back to Japan at the end of June after spending a year as an exchange student at UCLA.

“The events are so organized here. Like, there are so many different cultural events, since so many cultures are present on this campus. In Japan there are only Japanese students,” Nagano said.

Goldman said she was also impressed by the extent of involvement of students on this campus.

“The USAC student body elections were so impressive, so much money spent by so many different people,” Goldman said, referring to the elections for the Undergraduate Students Association Council that took place during sixth and seventh week of spring quarter.

“In Brazil, it’s quieter. We hand out the fliers for a day and on the next day it’s elections already,” she added.

Academically, however, she said Brazil’s college system is not that different from California’s. Goldman said she even used some of her Brazilian engineering books for her UCLA classes.

“The main difference here is the quarter system (where you) have to squeeze everything into 10 weeks, as opposed to 15 to 17 weeks in Brazil,” Goldman said.

With their time at UCLA drawing to a close, Goldman and Nagano are preparing to return to school in their home countries, while Fukumoto is getting ready to start job hunting in Japan.

But not all international students will be leaving right after the end of the academic year.

Some, like Traore, will take part in an optional training program, which gives them work experience for one year in the United States.

“I am waiting for my work permit now, and it’s going to be part of my experience in the U.S.,” Traore said.

Though eager for her work permit – which she is supposed to receive in July – and nervous about her upcoming finals, Traore is even more excited about the expected visit of her parents from Burkina Faso for her graduation.

“It’s like two contradictory feelings, anxious for finals but also so happy because my parents are coming,” Traore said.

“I just can’t wait.”