Studying abroad can be an adventure; a significant personal and professional development opportunity. With that experience comes significant emotional stress for any international student landing on a new campus, sometimes coupled with excitement and uncertainty. The journey to the new experience isn't just navigating to a new academic system, it also involves adapting not only to a new culture, but a new language, support system, and in some scenarios no support system.
Mental health issues among international students are not atypical - they are the norm. The university sector is very much moderating through a clear obligation to move beyond a basic reactive counseling service to create a truly inclusive and preventative mentally healthy, whole support system that adopts a culturally appropriate response to this need. Coming to terms with addressing international student mental health will help demystify the Global Challenges in Higher Education, and an international student's wellbeing is at the core of a student completing college well and retaining them on campus.
Understanding the Unique Strain on Global Students
While all students face stress, the hurdles for international students are compounded by factors few domestic students ever encounter. It’s not just about simple stress management; it’s about cross-cultural counseling in universities that acknowledges deep, systemic barriers.
Common Stressors for Students Studying Abroad:
Cultural Shock and Loneliness: Homesickness is more than just yearning to go home; it can frequently have a component of sadness from having lost a familiar support system, and contend with an apparent feeling of social disconnection. Indeed, some studies indicate international students report higher levels of anxiety and depression than their domestic-student counterparts, with even some studies indicating rates at or above 40% for depression and anxiety.
Language and Communication Barrier: A student may have enough English ability to engage in classroom discussions but may be less able to articulate complexity in their emotional feelings and understand mental health language that feels very contextual. This gap becomes a key feature of the psychological adjustment experience (see Journal of International Students for more information).
Academic and Visa Pressure: The stakes are higher. Not only do you have to remain academically engaged, if you don't achieve certain markers (like maintaining grades) you may also need to consider how quickly these can translate into loss of visa status and deportation - thus inducing high levels of anxiety (often hidden).
Financial Burden: High fees and exchange rate volatility can be a long-term concern, occasionally restricting access to important services like health care.
These are reasons why the university mental health support programs within universities must be specialized and not general. To gain a deeper understanding of these cultural gaps, read: Language Barriers and Cultural Gaps - What Students Really Worry About.
The Biggest Barrier: Cultural Stigma Around Seeking Help
Perhaps one of the biggest barriers to mental health without leaving the country is cultural shame of seeking counseling or therapy services. In many cultures, seeking therapy is not regarded as a healthy step forward, but rather a failing on the part of the family or a point of weakness. This stigma shows itself as:
- Silence and Denial: Students tend to internalize the struggle, as they fear their families back home or their peer group on campus will judge them.
- Underutilization: Studies in the US and globally consistently indicate a considerable service utilization gap. Even when international students screen positive for mental health concerns, their utilization of professional services can be significantly lower than domestic students—sometimes as low as 50% or more according to studies published by universities (e.g., Healthy Minds Study).
- Misattribution of Symptoms: Students may attribute mental health symptoms to physical symptoms or spiritual concerns, which sends them to primary care doctors or spiritual leaders rather than campus counselors.
All conclusions around the campus wellbeing for international students must start with trust-worthy student voices and cultural liaisons to destigmatize international student mental health.
Building Effective, Culturally Competent Support Systems
This transition to proactive, crisis-averting student wellbeing initiatives necessitates foundational structural, staffing, and technological shifts.
A. Staffing and Training: The Core Solution
The most revolutionary change that a university can make is to train their counseling center staff in cross-cultural counseling.
- Recruit for Diversity: Employ culturally diverse counselors or foreign residence counselors for several years, so that they can develop clients' or students' trust and rapport right away.
- Mandatory Training: Professional staff should undergo ongoing professional development focusing specifically on understanding cultural differences such as family system differences, differences in communication styles, and how stress manifests differently across cultures.
- Liaison and Ambassadors: Having liaisons (professional staff, or trained students) who are specialized in working with international students will create a support system for mental health care while reducing the intimidating factor of traversing a counseling center by providing a bridge.
B. Accessibility through Technology and Flexibility
Due to multiple geographic and/or time zone differences, conventional 9-to-5 face-to-face counseling models rarely suffice. High-quality virtual access is the answer.
- 24/7 Digital Platforms: Collaborate with secure international telehealth platforms to provide access to trained professionals who typically speak the students’ first language, at any hour of the day, or night.
- Multilingual Wellness Apps: You can customize or develop a digital mental health resource for global students all around the world that might consist of guided meditations, stress management activities, or self-reflection tools, in the most common language on campus.
- External Collaboration: Institutions can partner with recognized external verified mental health providers or NGOs familiar with working with global student populations making it easy to ramp up capacity in a timely manner. If your college is looking into these types of models, learn more here at uninewsletter.
Beyond the Counseling Room: Creating a Culture of Belonging
Mental wellbeing is not only the responsibility of the counseling centre, but also must be a comprehensive part of the campus wellbeing plan, implemented across the academic and social setting.
Empowering Faculty and Peers
Faculty and academic advisors are often the first to notice a student who is struggling. Their involvement is very important on the front end of noticing distress and involving appropriate and timely referral.
- Faculty Gatekeeper Training: Provide brief, mandatory trainings for ALL faculty and advisors to recognize common signs of distress (ie. drop in grades, increased isolation, consistent absenteeism) and provide warm handoffs to support services.
- Peer-to-Peer Networks: Then, you can enable solid initiatives for student wellbeing of peer helpers, peer support programs, or buddy programs. Pairing new international students with more established students, especially those from the same culture, enables them to have someone, if nothing else, to combat isolation, while offering less pressure to talk to someone, like faculty or a counselor, about adjusting to their new life.
- Cultural Sensitivity in the Classroom: Finally, we need to recommend to faculty to relay to students that they are aware of the pressure and/or cultural differences that students experience, and to advocate for consideration and even modifications to more traditional ways of doing group projects. For instance, some cultures can take a different approach to discuss a project as a team. You may also want to read this article specific to your efforts regarding international student mobility and wellbeing: How Climate and Health Crises are Shaping International Student Mobility.
Proactive and Preventative Programming
The focus must shift to prevention. Instead of acting reactively or waiting for a crisis, universities should seek to integrate wellness in a proactive way into the international student lifecycle.
- Forced Wellness Orientation: Incorporate a mental health centered session into international student orientation that de-stigmatizes the dialogue while fully explaining the mental health services provided to international students.
- Community-Building Activities: Create accessible campus events that challenge students to interact with one another outside their usual peer communities. For instance, create campus activities that are culturally celebratory and combine domestic and international students in order to interact with one another.
- Academic Stress Workshops: Create workshops focused on academic challenges that affect student mental health while studying abroad. For instance, topics can include both academic and attitude realities surrounding academic integrity, time management in a new academic system, and workload in demanding classes.
The Future of Global Student Support and Institutional Authority
With more students studying abroad, institutional support has become more complicated. Our hope is to develop sustainable, innovative, and sustainable university mental health support programs that regard the diverse student population as beneficial and not as a burden.
By embracing innovative, intercultural models of counseling, and enabling an honest culture of belonging to be achieved on their campuses, colleges and universities both perform their duty of care, as well as become more distinguished as genuinely global institutions. To take commanding advice on this pressing and critical matter, colleges and universities can also set priority in the entire mental health strategies and proposals established by the World Health Organization (WHO).
It is time to move beyond the checklist, and to embrace an even more sophisticated model of support.
26-05-2023
American University of Ras Al Khaimah 
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