International Students at ANU

The way things are
According to the ANU’s 2011 Annual Report, international students make up just under a quarter of ANU’s undergraduate student population. Whilst they share many similar experiences at the ANU with their domestic counterparts, significant differences also exist.

These differences exist in several areas. Financially, they pay significantly higher school fees and are only eligible for 40 hours of paid work per fortnight. Cultural and language barriers may be present, which might affect the types of activities they participate in and the people that they socialize with. They may have different priorities at university. In short, their concept of the “university experience” may be entirely different.

As a result of these factors, students of different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds will have different university experiences. What this means is that there is no single, representative “international student”. Indeed, the experiences and challenges of an Indonesian student will differ from that of a Korean student.

Taking all of this into account, it becomes clear that the challenges international students face will be different to those of domestic students. It is within the scope of representative organisations like ANUSA and the International Students’ Department (ISD) to address such issues (see the Dummy’s Guide to ANUSA and ISD website).

However, when it comes to issues regarding advocacy, in the grand scheme of undergraduate representation international student issues do not feature very prominently. Relative to domestic students, international students are also underrepresented in ANUSA. In 2011 only one rep was an international student; at the time of writing in 2012, five reps are international students. As a point of reference, if representation was to be proportionate, there should be ten international student reps in ANUSA.

The way we think it should be
We think that international student advocacy is seriously lacking at the ANU. Whilst it may be the case that proportionally fewer international students are as willing to get involved in international student issues in comparison to domestic students (owing to different pressures, priorities and so on), it may also be the case that a culture of such involvement is lacking.

Changing culture and habits aside, though, we believe that there is scope for much more interaction with the ISD and international students in general with regards to the challenges and opportunities that they face. We believe that an organisation like ANUSA should be making conscious efforts to include, consider and act on the varied university experiences of international students.

Do
As a group of students dedicated to thinking and researching the issues, problems and solutions surrounding the university experience, one of the focuses of an ANUSA think tank could be to pinpoint the challenges and opportunities of different university experiences, particularly those of international students. Important documents, such as fact sheets on the costs of university, accessing advocacy, work rights and so on should be made more accessible by printing them in different languages.
 *  Solution  : think tank
 *  Solution  : important documents in multiple languages

As a part of broadening its network and engaging students, ANUSA could do this by seeking out international student volunteers, or could pitch this to language students looking for practice. We believe that more significant international student engagement can come about easily by targeting relevant networks. For instance, opportunities for social engagement (such as event planning) could be tailored to target residences with significant international student populations, or reviews of how accessible courses were to non-native English speakers could be made at faculties with large international cohorts.
 *  Solution  : targeted outreach

There is much scope for such tarted outreach to be applied to residences, clubs, societies and faculties. We believe that understanding the issues that international students face can result in better representation. This can be done by working closely with ISD members, as well as encouraging greater international student participation at ANUSA meetings.
 *  Solution  : greater international student representation