My name is Suiru Lei. I am from China. I am from a suburban area of a busy southern city named Guangzhou. Now, I am a freshman student in the International Study Center at James Madison University.

Since I remembered, I had always been in public school. Unlike, American school schedules, my school has an unbelievable long schedules, so for me, most of my time was spent with my friends in school. In other words, my teenage life was pretty much study, study and study. However, I had no idea what I was interested in and what I wanted to persue in my future life. And I was never among those top kids that had clear images of their future. Then, a chance came and helped me come to United States of America.

It was my high school junior year that I first got to America. The culture difference gave me such huge shock. It really took me some time to adjust myself to the whole new environment, especially food. I couldn’t get used to salad at first, since in my culture, we always had our vegetable cooked. I still remembered I had stomachache for the whole first week I got to America. But with time past, I start to love salad and have it everyday. It is wonderful that how study aboard, experiencing culture difference, makes changes in my life.

While I was in the college application procedure, I saw this International Study Center program on James Madison University website, which was described as the pathway to James Madison University for international students who don’t meet the language requirement. And I thought this may be a better fit for me. So here I am, discovering this amazing place.

I love how quiet and peaceful it is in this town. I was so impressed when I was told that one of the school “rules” was to hold the door open for the next person. That was not the first thing that said how nice people were on the campus. At the beginning of the semester I was finding my way back to dorm after classes. I wasn’t so clear about how the bus system worked. So I was standing on the transit center, looking around and checking on bus schedule confusedly. Then the bus driver just came up and offered me some direction as well as guidance about how the system worked. That totally brights my day. I can’t say everyone is nice like that, but I can say how grateful I am to be on such amazing campus.

Couple weeks ago, I just finished my first semester. The whole semester just ran so fast. It is true that good time really runs fast! I can’t wait to get over the break and start the second semester! I miss school and everyone already!

Subscribe to this student blog by Email