Imagine this, being over 1,000 miles from your home, being in a place where the native language in something you only saw on television. This is what it’s like for many international students. The amount of international students studying in the United States has risen percent from last year, with over one million students studying here. Bishop Noll currently has six international students: Angela (freshman), Cristina (junior) and Gracia (senior) Martinez-Cantera who come from Valencia, Spain, senior Yidan Zhang and Brian Jeudy who come from China, and Danilo Malisic who hails from Serbia.

Although American education is widely considered in foreign nations as less challenging, the international students see advantages and disadvantages in the academic system in the United States. For a variety of reasons, Bishop Noll has had a somewhat steady incline of international students. Suddenly emerging yourself in a new culture has its perks, but it also has its disadvantages.

As children of Catholic missionaries and part of a family of 12, the Martinez-Cantera family traveled 4,360 miles to live in East Chicago as part of their mission. When the Martinez – Cantera family found they were coming to America, they felt similar emotions.

  “When I found out that I was coming to the United States, I was both excited and scared. I was not ready for the change, but I was ready for an adventure,” said Gracia.

  Gracia misses her home the most during Christmas and Las Fallas de Valencia, a 5-day celebration in March for the feast of St. Joseph.

  “Those two were holidays when you get to be with family and friends, and those were my favorite holidays. I miss my home because I miss the people in it, the way we all get along and the friendly environment.”

  An extrovert in Spain, Gracia has slowly morphed into more an introvert since coming to study in America. The main reason being her accent, but little by little thanks to her friends, she started talking and opening up more.

  “Bishop Noll is helping me perfect my English and to be more open when speaking English,” she said.

  For Gracia’s younger sister Cristina, she learned that East Chicago was nothing like being in Chicago or New York. In Spain, she was only taught British English, which is different than American English.

  “School in Spain is much different from here. We take around 14 different classes a year and it is because the schedule is different every day, but the same every week. We go home to eat lunch,  and we have 30 minutes to eat a snack outside while playing soccer or any games that you like.”

  Freshman Angela wasn’t the most excited when she found out that she had to leave Spain; in fact, she even cried.

  “I did not want to leave my friends and my family. At the time, I did not want to change anything. I loved where I was. I believed I did not need change,” she said. ‘It took quite some time for me to adapt to the new changes, for I did not know English at all.”

   Angela even failed English class in Spain, so the hardest challenge that she had to face was mastering the English language.

  “It was hard for me to learn English but I picked a thing that I love which was music [at Bishop Noll] and learned from that.”

  Angela has said that she will and listen and sing all songs in English, and that’s what has helped her the most to learn English.

  Senior Yidan Zhang, from Hefei, China, was granted the opportunity to study in the United States through a program.

  “I knew at the time that it is an extraordinary opportunity, and I had the dream of being in America since I was a kid. I was also scared, because it meant by the time I was 14 years old, I had to leave my mom to go to another country. I knew that learning English would take a person’s lifetime, but I only had two years to master it,” Yidan said.

  For Yidan, the biggest challenges in studying abroad came not from academics but from the culture—namely the religious culture at Bishop Noll.

  “To adjust to a new culture I definitely had to go out of my comfort-zone. I wasn’t used to greeting people. In my country, we don’t say phrases such as, ‘how are you’, or ‘how’s it going’,” said Yidan.

  To adjust to the differences, Yidan tends to watch YouTube videos in order to hear the difference of perspectives.

Religion was a struggle for Yidan her freshman year, due to her not being Catholic. In her head, everyone was Catholic, and since Bishop Noll is a Catholic school, she was scared to tell people that she was not religious. An introvert by nature, Yidan only made friends with people at Noll who talked to her. But as her English improved, Yidan started to speak more and made friends who she could count on and share her thoughts.

Junior Danilo Malisic was born in the United States, but has spent much of his childhood in Serbia. Every year for three months, he would suffer from culture shock going back to Serbia after being in America for the other nine months.

“American customs are really different from Serbian customs. Laws here for certain things are more stricter, but it’s because things here are a lot more regulated. It was hard to adapt to the United States because I was capable of going many places by myself at such a young age whereas in America, especially Chicago, I wasn’t able to go nearly as many places as I was back in Serbia.”

  Danilo enjoys the fact that Bishop Noll tries to have everyone be a part of one big family, and at the end of the day, he believes that you’ll always have some friends at this school that share similar interests as you, and sometimes one good friend is more than enough.