Transition strategies for international students

I’ve settled in, but it’s a hard question because there are no methods, it’s just like an ongoing thing. It’s just like a transition thing – you can’t say ‘If you do this, it will make it better ’ because it is based on the individual.* International students, who choose to pursue study in a foreign university, are among the highest-achieving candidates in most institutions. Nevertheless they experience a number of transition issues, intensified by being far from their usual supports, in a new academic culture, language and way of life. As well as adapting to the academic skill requirements of the host institution, international students must complete a successful transition to being a tertiary student in the host country. This chapter suggests practical strategies to ground the academic and social success of international students. The importance of a successful transition Successful transition to tertiary study is implicated in student retention and completion (for example, Levitz and Noel, 1989). Successful candidates rapidly acquire the necessary academic skills (such as academic writing, organisational skills, time management, critical thinking) that make the difference between completion and drop-out. However even before skill acquisition and mastery, successful students make an initial, firm transition to their course and their institution of choice (see for example McInnis et al., 2000). They engage with their academic endeavours and commit to completion. This is an essential step for internationals. The major transition issues can be broadly categorised into four main concerns: academic, geographic, personal and administrative (see Table 1), with much overlap between categories. While the geographic and personal issues facing international students are of great importance and to some degree self-evident (see for example the literature on homesickness as in ‘Cultural Adjustment – A Brief Introduction’, University of British Columbia Student Guidebook a