Campus, News

Exchange students struggle to get full-time status

Before Marco Heid left Germany, the emails welcoming him to study abroad in California warned him that his first week would not be an easy one.

But instead of struggling to crash a class or two, the Open University program only allowed Heid to enroll in classes on the first day of school, forcing him to crash every single course he wanted to take this semester.

“When they sent emails to us before we came here, nine out of 10 of them included [a notice] that domestic students were preferred,” Heid said.

After a stressful week enrolling in classes and navigating through a foreign bureaucratic system, Heid got his 13 units and is now a full time student at California State University, Long Beach.

And the clock is ticking for the other 300 study abroad students who only have until this Friday to lock in all of their classes.

“You need to go to the professors, get their signature and sometimes beg,” said Danish mechanical engineering student Kristian Therkildsen. “We have a deadline of Sept. 4, but some professors won’t add you until Sept. 7.”

Like any other full time student, study abroad students need to be registered for at least 12 units. For them however, they risk of losing their visas if they cannot get enough classes.

“You are not allowed to study here if you don’t have [12 units],” Therkildsen said. “You can get kicked out of the country.”


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Study abroad students pay $5,900 to study for one semester at CSULB, nearly twice the amount that California residents pay. Yet that cost alone does not guarantee them a spot in any class, said Terrence Graham, associate dean of the Center for International Education.

“If they do not find open seats in their desired courses, they will have to be as flexible as possible and open their mind to alternative courses… that would be enriching,” Graham said. “[Study abroad] students come here with the awareness that no courses are guaranteed.”

To fill the gap in missing units, study abroad students said they enroll in courses that they do not fit in with their major. One option is to pick up 1-unit kinesiology courses, such as surfing, weight training or yoga.

Study abroad students say that they are also falling behind on their studies. Many of them are not able to access readings and assignments on Beach Board.

“We can’t log into Beach Board,” said William Sandt, a global business engineering student from Denmark. “We have homework for next week, but we don’t know what it is.”

Sandt said that he had only eight units by the end of the first week.

Yet the study abroad department has been working overtime to not leave their students behind, Graham said.

A team of three full-time staff members and four student advisors were working to make sure these students get to stay in the country.

“We are doing everything that we can to make this as smooth as possible for our students,” Graham said. “Our team is working 8 to 5, but they are really putting in more like 8 to 8 every day for the past month just to get everything set up.”

Therkildsen, Sandt and Heid said that despite their stressful first week, they are looking forward to a semester at CSULB.

“All of our [study abroad] students have been able to be registered in 12 units and fulfill the basic requirements of an F-1 student visa,” Graham said. “No one has gone home because they couldn’t find 12 units.”

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