The Ultimate Exchange Student

David Liu, an international student in Munich, has studied in three different countries in the last four years of his life. Hailing from the port city of Guangzhou, China, David completed his high school education there and continued on to study at one of the top Ivy League universities in America: Cornell University. Now in his third year of university studies, David finds himself studying abroad in yet another country for the year at LMU. I sat down with David to talk about his difficulties and takeaways as an international student.

Charlotte Marshall: Did you complete all of your education before college in China?

David Liu: Yes. I did only one year of high school though, and then I just stayed home and self-studied, meaning I just bought the textbooks and studied them on my own time and learned the same material I would’ve in the classroom.

CM: Is that common for Chinese students to do?

DL: It’s not very common (laughs), but I felt like I couldn’t do school work and then study for AP and SAT exams at the same time, so I was just like “bitch I’m out. I’m just gonna stay at home and study by myself.”

CM: What made you decide to come to America after that for college?

DL: That’s a good question. I just felt like the educational system in China wasn’t for me because it was a lot of repetitive work and you couldn’t choose your classes… I actually got into a big fight with my parents about studying abroad because they thought it would be safer to just stay in China and go to college there, and of course less expensive. We didn’t talk for a month after, but eventually they told me to do whatever I wanted. In Chinese colleges, you have to take ‘politics’ classes, meaning you have to study Marxism and the military history of the Communist Party and you also cannot switch your major once you enter college. And I had no idea what I wanted to study… Like even now I’m like “Do I want this? Am I lying?” But those were basically the main reasons I chose to come to the states.

CM: Given it’s difficult for every student to begin college and get to know a new environment within their home country, how hard was it to make the transition between countries?

DL: It was definitely difficult, but for me, there was no language barrier when I got there because my English was already pretty good, but I know a lot of my friends struggled in the first two months because they couldn’t understand what the professor was talking about. I feel like the people on my floor freshman year weren’t very open to talking to international students, like it’s very common for them to say hi and ask your name, and then that’s it. They don’t want to sustain a conversation with you, even if you want to talk more, they’ll just ignore that. But it was definitely hard because I also didn’t want to hang out with Chinese international students; I didn’t like the community because I have a lot of different political opinions from them because I don’t really fuck with the government like they do, so I chose to avoid a lot of their activities and I didn’t like the CSSA (Chinese Students and Scholars Association) on my campus.  But then gradually I got to know more people, that freshman mentality stopped working and they became more open to new people.

CM: How did you decide to study abroad for the whole year in Munich?

I didn’t want to be on Cornell campus and if I’m studying abroad as a German/Math major, why not Germany? Also, this is not really studying abroad for me because I’ve been studying abroad for two years already, so I thought I might as well find a new place and travel and meet new people. There was no real debate about coming here for me and it saves money too.

CM: Okay, final Question: As a seasoned international student, do you have any advice for students thinking of studying in a new country?

DL: Hmm, first, it would definitely be nice to know the language well, because then you won’t be worrying about language barriers. You’ll already have a lot of other things to worry about and you don’t want language to be one of them. Second, try not to stay in your circle with students from your own country or the same cultural background. I have friends from China at Cornell, but just try not to stay in an exclusive circle where you won’t meet new people. Third, I would say just stay open-minded. Just chill. Don’t stress yourself out.