Dakar, Dres­den and Every­thing in Be­tween: Meet Some In­ter­na­tional Maryville Stu­dents

Maryville is a di­verse cam­pus, in­fused with stu­dents with a va­ri­ety of back­grounds. Some stu­dents call Mis­souri and Illi­nois home. Oth­ers are from Cal­i­for­nia, Texas, Min­nesota; Yet many hail from coun­tries around the globe. What brought our in­ter­na­tional stu­dents to Amer­ica, and how did they wind up at Maryville? What do they like best liv­ing in this coun­try we call home?

Name: An­drea Fandiño

Year: Ju­nior

Coun­try of Ori­gin: Mex­ico

Home­town: Mex­ico City

An­drea Fandiño, ju­nior, came to school in Amer­ica to learn a cul­ture dif­fer­ent from hers. She wanted to im­prove her Eng­lish skills while also step­ping far out of her com­fort zone. Since Maryville is a small school near a city, that was huge pro when de­cid­ing where to at­tend. Fandiño wanted to go to a pri­vate school, but did­n’t like the prospect of liv­ing in a rural area. She also plays ten­nis for Maryville.

While peo­ple who were born and raised in Amer­ica find the change of weather to be quite bland, An­drea shares that to be a huge cul­tural dif­fer­ence from what she is used to. “My biggest cul­ture shock was the food and the weather in St. Louis. I was not used to eat­ing so much fast food or to be in an en­vi­ron­ment that gets ex­tremely cold and has snow in the win­ter,” Fandiño said.

She also notes that peo­ple in Amer­ica go about meals very dif­fer­ently. Fandiño notes that Amer­i­cans eat quickly, then go on to some­thing else. In Mex­ico, peo­ple sit down for every meal and take their time. Ac­cord­ing to Fandiño, it’s al­most a rit­ual of sorts.

Over­all, Fandiño is ex­tremely glad she has had the op­por­tu­nity to study here. “My Eng­lish has got­ten way bet­ter. I’ve made life­time friend­ships, I’ve learned a lot about dif­fer­ent cul­tures. I’ve been able to be suc­cess­ful out­side of my com­fort zone,” Fandiño said.

She is cur­rently pur­su­ing a de­gree in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but has­n’t de­cided on a spe­cific ca­reer. Af­ter grad­u­a­tion, she wants to pur­sue a mas­ter’s de­gree and get a job in the United States to see if she would en­joy a long-term ca­reer in the states.

 

Name: Ali Djop

Year: Alumni, Class of 2015

Coun­try of Ori­gin: Sene­gal

Home­town: Dakar

Ali grad­u­ated from Maryville in 2015 with a bach­e­lor of arts in in­ter­na­tional stud­ies and two mi­nors, one in po­lit­i­cal sci­ence and the other in Span­ish. Fol­low­ing grad­u­a­tion, he spent a year in­tern­ing with the United Na­tions in New York and is now start­ing his mas­ter’s pro­gram at the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics.

He de­cided to come to school in the United States, be­cause he be­lieved ex­po­sure to Eng­lish would help him to suc­ceed in his pro­jects later in life. Ali, much like An­drea, came to Maryville be­cause of the small school at­mos­phere and hands on learn­ing. “I chose Maryville be­cause un­like large re­search uni­ver­si­ties, Maryville is a smaller school. Also, the stu­dent to pro­fes­sor ra­tio is quite small, which means that stu­dents like me can learn bet­ter and per­form bet­ter aca­d­e­m­i­cally,” Djop said.

When asked how Maryville pre­pared him for where he is now, Ali cred­its the school and his ad­vi­sor in help­ing him gain the knowl­edge and skills he would need to work for an in­ter­na­tional in­sti­tu­tion. His time here also helped make him aware of events around the globe. Though Ali is not en­tirely sure of his fu­ture ca­reer, it will def­i­nitely in­volve work­ing with peo­ple from around the globe.

 

Name: Lina Kunert

Year: Fresh­man

Coun­try of Ori­gin: Ger­many

Home­town: Dres­den

Lina Kunert, fresh­man, is cur­rently in her first se­mes­ter of school­ing in the United States. She says it’s been al­ways been a dream of hers to spend sig­nif­i­cant time in Amer­ica. A friend in­spired her to study here and Maryville of­fered her a ten­nis schol­ar­ship. Need­less to say, she jumped at the op­por­tu­nity.

Kunert hopes to get the same ben­e­fits Ali and An­drea re­ceived from their ex­pe­ri­ence. “I will im­prove my lan­guage skills and grow as a per­son, while meet­ing new peo­ple and cul­tures. That will help me to fig­ure out what I will do in my fu­ture life,” Kunert said.

Like her team­mate Fandiño, Kunert also states that the food was her biggest cul­ture shock upon ar­riv­ing in Amer­ica. She likes the wel­com­ing and help­ful at­ti­tudes she has en­coun­tered so far, which is­n’t sur­pris­ing; Maryville is known for its invit­ing at­mos­phere. When she grad­u­ates with a de­gree in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion, Kunert plans on re­turn­ing home to Ger­many.