Shagufta Sami: The unexpected challenges of living on my own

While I’m busy tackling the problems of university life as an international student, I do realize that being on your own is an entirely new concept for a lot of people. This is especially true when you come from a country where families are close-knit like mine.

A long list of complaining aunts, laughing uncles and their quickly growing families would gather at home on weekends - as if my family is not enormous enough. The house would easily hold between 50 and 80 people in a jiffy. It’s so packed that sometimes one of the aunts, busy blabbering and saying goodbye, grabs someone else’s kids before going home.

And such is the homesickness that you make announcements about so that your siblings, scattered around the globe, will call you and give you attention. Memories like these always make me laugh.

Coming from that background to fending for yourself can be extremely hard. This transition period is what makes or breaks a person. Never having lived alone, this is a test of my (and most international students’) independence. It showed how much I could rely on myself. This helped me realize what I am truly capable of.

The passage of time is always unnoticed. In the eyes of my family, I was still that little girl taking her first tentative steps. If I fell, there was someone there with open arms keeping me safe and chasing the monsters away. Being the youngest of five siblings I now know how pampered I really was.

But by living in the coil, you never truly grow up. And when that family security is no longer there, the passage into adulthood happens. I went from being the child of a family to a fully grown adult in the space of a week when I came to Toledo.

At the beginning of the semester the assignments started trickling in. My thought process went something like, “Oh, two sets of questions due next week isn’t bad at all. In fact it is easier than I expected. And they keep on saying graduate school is hard. These Americans must not know what hard is. They should attempt coming to school in India.”

Then I got another assignment. “But I haven’t even finished the first; why are you giving me a second? I can’t believe this, there is no way I can get all this done by Monday. I just have to study harder and longer.” I felt like I was drowning. I didn’t know how I was expected to do every single thing on time and still be able to read over course material.

The knowledge that everyone goes through the same thing didn’t do much to help me. I thought to myself, “Well no one else feels exactly the same pressure I do. I’m not them, and they aren’t me. I need to succeed. I need to be the best. I need to excel - not just pass. No one back home will be satisfied with just a pass. And how do these Americans manage to go home on the weekend, hang out and still do all the work they are supposed to?

“I shouldn’t be complaining. What about students whose language of instruction in their home country isn’t English? They are still doing well - even better than me. I must be a failure.”

Have you seen someone looking confused at the map in his or her hand? In the lecture class, have you seen someone nodding at the professor with an innocent face? Have you seen someone clueless in the cafeteria trying to select the food? Someone trying to figure out bus routes?

Have you seen me?

You might have.

Help them; help me. Approach them and be a helping hand - it’s not easy for us. Frustration, or losing our grip or not knowing small things, greatly affects our focus. People adapt too many things just to be accepted and to blend in. People change their names to try to fit in better, and that gets rid of their personality.

Life is full of challenges, especially for a newcomer from an extremely different culture and knowledge background. However, even if you aren’t doing well in your classes, please don’t look down on yourself. Remember, you have a unique personality that no one else has. Moreover, I believe a hardworking and good attitude will help to make up for the unfamiliarity with culture and professional knowledge.

We are all trying to become good people. And we have dreams of our future. We may have limited topics to chat about, but that may be simply because we grew up watching different cartoons and TV shows.

I am not the everything-is-fine kind of person. I do face unexpected differences which are frustrating. America is my greatest adventure and my biggest fear. And for a Desi girl like me, time will only show if the lemonade has the right amount of sugar.

Shagufta Sami is a first-year computer science graduate student.