Description of the video:

My name is Fan. My Chinese name is Bu Fan.

I grew up in a Southwest City from kunming china.

So funny story: I finished my high school in Florida, and I was an exchange student to Minnesota for year during my sophomore in high school.

I always kind of liked the midpoint between Minnesota and Florida, and when I looked at Kelly School of Business, I thought that's a place I really want to go.

So I decide to come here to be closer to both of my host families and finish my academic studies at Kelly. 

I was really nervous before my first college class. My way into that class: it was a 200 people class. I didn't know where to sit and what I need to do. 

I was really confused, and I look around people, they seemed like they know what they were doing but I'm not. 

But afterwards when I go to talk to the professor, he was really nice and kind and introduced me and everything and cleared all my confusions. 

If you're struggling there it's not because you're weak. It's not your own fault. 

Everybody go through that period. 

Just step out your comfort zone talk to other people. There are lots of help available to you. People are waiting to help you. 

My first college roommate: she's a domestic student, she was really nice. Basically my dorm, she pretty much moved her whole house to the dorm. 

We had refrigerators, microwaves, everything we can think of, and whenever I go ask her if I can use that she just said, "yeah feel free to use it" and that really - she was really helpful and heartwarming. 

If she had snacks she would share with me. If I have some good interest things to do, I'd share with her. 

That's why I felt like IU was my home. 

Do you have anything else you'd like to share with us?

Description of the video:

I'm Anushree Kedia and I go by Ree.

I grew up in Mumbai, India and I spent all of my life there before I came to University here. 

It's been an extremely interesting journey just because it's not just been leaving a big city to come to a small town like Bloomington, it's been about leaving everything that I know, everything i'm familiar with back at home.

It was overwhelming, it was terrifying - having to leave all those comforts back at home of just like being able to go back home when I wanted to for the weekend, or just spending time with my family, or with my dog.

I remember the first time that I came in on campus it was for International Student Orientation and there was no one on campus.

So Bloomington was just already a small place - felt like it was deserted: there was no one walking around campus, the students weren't here.

I didn't know anyone really, but everyone that was coming to IU from Mumbai, we all had a little meet up and went and got lunch and we just like spoke and it was like, "hey, I'm going to IU too we need to make friends." We all were in the same boat, so it kind of helped this spark that friendship.

It was nice making friends with the other Indians, but it was also really - it wasn't the best idea, in my opinion, just because it gave us that chance to make our own friend group during International Student Orientation when all the other students weren't in here already for classes. 

And, so it really closed me off for the first few months because I thought that I already had my friend group - I didn't want to talk to anyone, and I really limited myself because I had that friend group and it was everyone that was like me - so it wasn't really helping with meeting new people, learning their story.

So it was a really mixed bag of emotions, that first semester was weird. 

In the start I was really scared about interacting with people, because I was worried about what they think about me. I was worried that people would be horrible, because I had heard all these stories about people being racist, and like not liking Indians, or - just all these instances that could be some sort of harm caused to me, which made me really scared to interact with domestic students in general, or anyone outside my friend group, because it was safe.

So when I moved to the Global Village, a month into my first semester here, it was amazing because the Global Village is a living learning community, which is in Foster.

It's a community for everyone interested in different cultures, different languages. 

It's everyone that wants to know more about the world - so that really helped, because people wanted to talk to me.

They just wanted to know my experience, they wanted to hear more about my life back at home in Mumbai. And I think that's what sparked it, because I really needed someone to pull me out of my friend group instead of me taking the leap of faith, because that was terrifying for me. 

I think the moment that I realized that IU was home was actually my first summer back at home, right before sophomore year. 

When I'd been home for about a month and it was my birthday - my birthday's in June - and I wanted to celebrate it in Mumbai, but there was also this part of me inside, which was like, "I'm not home though" like "I want to go home and celebrate it with my friends" and that's when I realized that - okay IU is home.

Description of the video:

I'm Atrayee Mukherjee.

I grew up in India for most of my life, for (Danyo's?) and then I moved to the Middle East - my parents lived there, and I lived there for another (Danyo?) sort of - I grew up mainly in India, in (Kutta?).

So I moved here three years ago for my freshman year. I'm a Junior right now. 

So for the first two months it just felt like a dream. Like I wasn't really here, but I mean I obviously was. I was attending class - I was doing everything that normal freshman do. 

But then, kind of the shock of just actually living here hit me, and my freshman year after that point was just really difficult for me because I was facing a lot of homesickness and just an inability to adjust here.

All I wanted was to just feel comfortable here and I just couldn't. 

This one time someone in the room next to me heard me talking on the phone outside my room, and texted our mutual friend saying why is Atrayee outside my room speaking in other language - she didn't even say speaking, she said yelling.

And someone I knew at the time asked me how do you tell Asian people apart, and I saw all of this horrible stuff on social media - like making fun of like East Asian people's names and accents, and I was just horrified by the way that people treated someone like me and others like me. 

It just, it was just really horrific, and that was the first experience I had of being "othered," because when I grew up in India like - I was surrounded by other Indian people just like me, so coming here I was not Atrayee Mukherjee anymore - I was the Indian girl. 

I moved from my first residence hall to my second and I moved to Collins Living Learning Center and that's really when I think I was able to be my own person. 

I definitely met a lot of amazing people - some of my closest friends right now are from there and it really changed my life, because I will finally surrounded by the people who appreciated not only me as a person, but also my culture, my language, my - just everything about me, and helped me feel comfortable here, and feel at home here. 

Um, it was around the same time that I started increasing my involvement with Culture of Care - I became the Director of Respect, and in the board of Culture of Care is where I really found people who wanted to hear what I wanted to say, and were listening and wanted to help me do something. 

And those were really just key moments in my experience here that really changed my perception of IU and of Bloomington - of this country in general.

When I was going through all that I went through my freshman year, I felt like I was really alone. 

And that I couldn't talk to anyone, but any international student out there who feels this way - there is a network of people out here for you and we care, I care. 

Put yourself out there, this campus is just as much yours as anyone else's. You're here and you belong here. I wish someone had told me this when I was a freshman, because those feelings of alienation I don't think any anyone should be able to feel those.

Description of the video:

My name is Eric Gu. 

I grew up in Shanghai, which is in China, ever since I was, um, until I was 16 and then I moved to Michigan. 

I was there, first on a foreign exchange program, and then I actually ended up staying there because I liked the school and the environment there. 

I think for me, luckily, I can kind of expand adjustments throughout years in high school up until now. 

So when I came to college, I felt like it would be be so much easier than a lot of other international students coming to campus for the first time. 

For me the only thing I need to adjust is just moving from Michigan; knowing nobody here and trying to make friends, but culturally I already feel comfortable enough to be able to talk to domestic students and then we all become friends.

But I think definitely for a lot of international students it's a burden to try to make friends and try to adjust a new culture at the same time.

And also you have all the academic involvement going on and you have you just have so many things thrown at you. 

I think there are a lot of resources at University put out to support international students,  but I think there's definitely more that students and faculty members can do - not just through policy, but everyday action as well. 

Just to be more friendly talk to them, you know.

We have thousands internationally on campus right now, maybe a lot of domestics grow up not knowing anyone from other countries, or just anyone that's different.

You have to open up your mind - try to get out of your comfort zone - try to talk to international students around you. 

They are everywhere on campus and try to get to know them.

They have they have amazing experience.

And just through all these talks you get to understand people more and then that builds a lot of bridges in between - that doesn't even matter, domestic or international, just people with different experiences.

I have so many places I consider home sometimes it's hard for me to - you know - jump around the idea of home. 

Do you consider IU Bloomington to be home? 

Oh definitely.

I think the moment I realized that - I don't quite remember like exactly this day or time or what happened. It's just first year - I mean everyone's friendly - but first year at some point when something happened: when I was sick and then my friends were giving up their time to take care of me like family, and they we were doing things that my mom would do when I was sick. 

And that's when I felt like, this is home, this is this is why we're living together we became a family essentially.