Stressful Experiences of Foreign Students at Various Stages of Sojourn: Counseling and Policy Implications

Abstract

My purpose in this paper is to look at the foreign sojourn of students as a process which goes through various stages, from selection, which determines who is to go abroad, to the return to the country of origin. The approach resembles that of a case history, which includes an account of the antecedents of a particular experience, a description of the experience itself, and an indication of its consequences in the life of the persons concerned. The process may even be described as analogous to a life story, since a full understanding of selection will involve attention to what led up to the desire as well as the opportunity to go abroad, and the impact after the return home may in some cases last through the rest of the person’s life. The stages to be discussed are clearly not entirely separable or independent, since what happens at the outset may be closely related to what follows; but the chronological approach should be helpful in seeing the foreign sojourn as an integrated experience within a time perspective. This would appear to be all the more necessary since the bulk of the research literature in this area is limited to the study of foreign students at one particular point of time.