By Jenny Edengard
Assistant Opinions Editor
LIU Post is a culturally diverse campus featuring students from around the globe. According to collegedata.com, roughly 6 percent of the population is international students from an estimated 40 countries on our campus. How did they find our campus from abroad and why did they ultimately decide to attend at Post?
Photo: Jenny Edengard
For me, I am an international student from Stockholm, Sweden. When I started researching schools online in New York with an English degree program, I found LIU Post and LIU Brooklyn. However, I felt
as if there wasn’t enough information about them for me to form an opinion by simply looking at a computer screen. So, I booked a ticket to New York with the sole purpose of going to see both Post and Brooklyn campuses.
Before I left Sweden, I had arranged meetings with the Admissions office and the International Students office at Post. When I arrived during the fall of 2012, the humongous and lavish-looking campus amazed me. Compared to the University of Stockholm, where I had last attended, and that had modern square-shaped buildings, the Post campus looked like an old, English dream that assured me I was as close to attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as I’d ever be. After my meetings, I took a liking to Post and never went to see the Brooklyn campus. I enrolled at Post for spring 2013 and well, the rest is history.
Everyone’s path to Post is different, even for students coming from the same country. However, international students provide interesting stories about how they made it to Post.
“I started off at Stony Brook doing the ESL [English as a second language program] and as I was completing the program a friend there recommended me to go to LIU Post, because it had a smaller campus and better professors,” said Mohammed Ahayd, a sophomore radiology major from Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Ahayd said that he is “more than happy with his decision to come to Post. I really like the campus and the people here are really friendly.” Muhannad Falemban, a freshman international studies major from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, said that he found the school for the reason that his sister started her studies at Post in fall 2014.
“I started my studies in spring 2015, and I applied for other schools as well, but when I got accepted at Post, I decided to go here since my sister was already enrolled at Post,” he said. Falemban mentioned that the hardest thing about being away from home and deciding to study abroad has been the language barrier. “I’ve only been in the U. S for less than a year,” he said, “so it’s a learning process.”
“I finished my undergraduate degree in Pakistan, and I applied to three different schools in New York for graduate school,” said Priya Devi, a masters of business administration graduate student from Karachi, Pakistan. “But a friend suggested Post and when I got accepted here I enrolled in spring 2015.”
Devi said that her brother had already moved from Pakistan to Long Island, so she had him as support system when she moved to the U.S. Still the move hasn’t been a walk in the park. “I find it difficult to make friends here because of the workload from my graduate program,” Devi said. “So I don’t have that much free time to make friends.”
“I found Post as I researched schools and I applied online,” said Chenghan Kuo, a junior economics major from Tainan, Taiwan. “When I got accepted, I decided to move to Long Island as I already had my uncle who lives here as a support to help me learn the language.”
Kuo added, “Learning English is hard, it’s frustrating when I’m in class and I don’t understand the meaning, but you can’t stop and ask the professor to repeat themselves.” Kau said he’s happy with his choice to study at Post and says he likes the school despite the challenges he has to overcome with the language barrier.
These international students relied on other people’s experiences, and their decision to enroll at Post was because of recommendations. For those international students, taking the leap of faith and leaving home was made easier as many of them had the comfort of knowing someone already studying at Post or living on Long Island.
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