Last August, there was a new update in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy manual on the five-month policy for F-1 visas. This would restrict F-1 visa holders from spending more than five months outside the U.S. — including for academic programs — if they wish to maintain their visa status. However, it is currently ambiguous whether the new manual update is accurate or misleading, causing confusion among many institutions and international students.
As the 2024 presidential election draws near, the issues of immigration and travel have once again come into the national spotlight. Former President and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has often taken hardline stances on immigration, rhetoric that in the past, has sometimes extended to his policies surrounding student visas.
As Mount Holyoke College welcomed its students back on campus for an in-person semester, returning international students shared their experiences traveling back to campus. Some explained how traveling in the time of COVID-19 can be difficult with regards to getting vaccinated, testing, flying and moving in.
Over the past year, the meaning of a normal college experience has changed drastically. What was supposed to be a time of meeting new people and making memories has transformed completely. The online college experience is devoid of interaction with peers beyond an educational setting, which is negatively impacting many students.
The spring semester saw Mount Holyoke College open up its campus for almost 60 percent of its student population, a move that prompted many students to make the journey back to South Hadley. Among this group were numerous international students, who chose to return to campus for stability in the online learning environment, a closer connection to campus and academic reasons, among others.
By Aditi Parashar ’22
Staff Writer
Through time zone differences and the demands of the new module system, international students have had a vastly different start to their school year than domestic students. After finishing the module system on Oct. 15, some international students reflected on the challenges they faced these past seven-and-a-half weeks.
Saachi Khandpur ’22 was recently quoted in an article for HuffPost India as saying, “I am choosing between whether I want to follow a normal schedule, not feeling sick and getting some quality time with my family or if I want to be able to participate at my optimal potential in class, and it is a hard choice.” As a junior politics and psychology double major, attending three classes that go past midnight has taken a toll on Khandpur’s health, both physically and mentally.
In addition, many countries around the world do not have consistent access to electricity and the internet. This is an added challenge to remote learning as all resources and social connections to Mount Holyoke are now available almost exclusively online. On Sept. 17, the North American Association of Indian Students’ Instagram page posted a statement from Kusha Chopra ’21. “Office hours, TA hours and extra resources for students are available only during the night,” Chopra stated. “It is not like [international] students can sleep all day as individuals have chores, internships and some even have jobs. It further exacerbates the resource inequality due to the different time zones and distance.”
The differences in time zones have an additional disparate impact on international students’ social lives. While many clubs and organizations on campus have continued to hold meetings in an effort to build and maintain community, these meetings tend to be held in Eastern Standard Time, making them inaccessible to those in different time zones. In the same HuffPost India article published Sept. 18, Khandpur elaborated, “I am part of the FAMILIA, an LGBTQ+ and people of colour organisation on campus. It was my family away from home and that’s one community I miss a lot. Now that I am home, that is something I miss talking about. One of the clubs emailed me that they are meeting today [Sept. 18], but they are meeting at 3 AM, and I don’t know if I should stay up.”
International students are also not eligible for student employment this semester. Many jobs on campus, despite functioning in an online space, are still not available for international students. The Opening the Gates FAQ page states, “If you work remotely for MHC while living in another country, MHC is subject to all of the employment laws of that country. Employment laws vary widely from country to country. Mount Holyoke is not able to comply with all of the laws and regulations required to lawfully employ students living in various international locations.”
Amman Syed ’22 said, “There has been no clarity from the [College] administration as to whether or not we will have the jobs we were selected for once we are back on campus. Since we were not eligible, they had to give these jobs to domestic students or students within the United States; however, what happens when I go back? Will I have the job that I not only qualify for but also was selected for, or not?”
The International Student Organizing Committee recently held a dialogue titled “FIT Module? Or Not?” In their discussion, the attendees suggested that the administration improve the FIT model to emphasize the need to listen to student voices with more transparency in the decision-making process.
By Corrine Celupica-Liu ’23
Staff Writer
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mount Holyoke announced the implementation of the Flexible Immersive Teaching model as a means of academic instruction for the 2020-2021 academic year. This model, as explained on Mount Holyoke’s “Opening the Gates” webpage, emphasizes synchronous classes to “ensure an immersive experience and inclusive excellence,” offering courses from 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. EST so that “students in different time zones across the world can participate.” While the entire Mount Holyoke community has had to adjust to this new model of instruction, international students have faced unique challenges and experiences due to widely diverse geographic circumstances and time zones.
For Deborah Korboe ’21, who lives in Sakumono, Ghana in West Africa, time zone differences mean she attends her Module 1 courses starting at 5 p.m. and finishes at 2 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time.
“It has certainly been a tasking job,” Korboe said. “It helps that I have time during the day to do homework, but I have to change my [biological] clock to keep up with synchronous classes.”
Both Aurora Vo ’23 and Hongtian Wang ’22, who are 11 and 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in Vietnam and China, respectively, are also taking classes late at night and have faced difficulties adjusting to time differences.
“For this module, I have classes starting from 7 p.m. through 11:15 p.m. every day, and all require students to attend in real time,” Vo explained. “Even though it’s only been three weeks, I am already tired because I stay up late, making my sleep schedule a bit off.”
Wang also mentioned how it can be difficult to keep track of and calculate deadlines in a different time zone. “There have been some difficulties for me in calculating deadlines,” Wang said. “I have made mistakes calculating deadlines, so I ended up turning in assignments late.”
Mount Holyoke has made efforts to maintain access to resources and community despite remote circumstances. “My professors try to put students in the same time zone into a group so it will be easier for us to communicate, and they also hold a virtual common room for us to do homework together outside of class,” Wang explained. “I feel very involved and cared [for], even living very far from the campus.”
Vo also noted how the tight-knit nature of the Mount Holyoke community is helping to maintain a connection to campus. “One cool thing about Mount Holyoke is that because our student body is not large, I have seen most of my classmates on campus before,” Vo said. “A big picture of Mount Holyoke is still there for me.”
For Korboe and Wang, however, the support and community felt in courses seems not to apply to extracurricular activities.
“It seems like [student organizations] won't be a feature for me this semester, because meeting times are always in the middle of the night for me,” Korboe said. “I just wish my colleagues would be a little more considerate.”
Wang noted that, because “I sleep early, I don’t participate in any events. That is a pity.”
While the FIT model marks a significant adjustment for the entire Mount Holyoke community, the experience of Mount Holyoke’s large international student population is important to understand in order to continue work on fostering community through the academic year.
On July 6, 2020, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced that nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students could not take full online course loads and remain in the United States. International students risked deportation if the college or university they attended switched to remote learning for the fall 2020 semester, which many had already announced due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a prestigious liberal arts institution, Mount Holyoke College attracts students from a myriad of places around the globe. In most cases, these students attend Mount Holyoke directly after high school. But the College also attracts a fair number of transfer students, both domestic and international.
BY VICTORIA WANG ’20
With over ten years of experience working with international college students in the U.S., Bri Rhodes joined Mount Holyoke College this spring as the new Director of International Student Advising at the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives. She will help international students navigate immigration issues and work to improve their experiences on campus.
