Welcome to Inside the Mind of an International Student - a series covering the experiences of studying abroad. Special thanks to Madhumitha Kannan for putting together this series.

According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, these were the number of inbound international students as of 2021, based on the World Bank income group division of countries:

• Lower middle income countries: 449,228
• Middle income countries: 1,732,835
• Upper middle income countries: 1,283,607
• High income countries: 4,563,815

These numbers act as testimony for the mass migration that occurs annually worldwide, solely by those pursuing higher education. Yet, international students are still widely underrepresented, or even unrepresented in some cases. Places of study still operate with little understanding towards the magnitude of change international students undergo when choosing to pursue knowledge and experience in a nation far from home. As an international student myself, follow me as I tell you about why, in 2024, it’s time to bring some attention to students away from their home countries.

It is no mystery to anyone that the environment we grow up in greatly affects who we are as people. Every single identifier of a person - their physical looks, the food they eat, the music they listen to and the clothes they wear - comes from around them, in the environment they grew up in. We use the word culture to describe all these identifiers. So, when someone from, say culture A, moves to a place with culture Z, which is the polar opposite of what they’re used to, they ideally relearn the art of living. While learning culture Z, they also learn to stop, or at least lessen, missing A. But remember, this is just culture.

Let’s throw some other variables into the equation. Maybe finances? Or even linguistics, with different languages and accents? Perhaps smaller things like currency and systems of measurement (I, for one, will always hold a grudge against the imperial system as a firm metric loyal). All the little factors under culture, coupled with these other variables, alongside travel, academics, and hundreds of other minuscule parts of life, impact international students on a daily basis.

So come with me as I take you on this journey that I, along with millions of others around the globe, am experiencing, in this series called: Inside the Mind of an International Student.