Abdulrahman Aigilani didn't feel at home in Nashville. After one semester at Vanderbilt University, he went back to Saudi Arabia.
This year, he's making a fresh start at Tufts, hoping to find a more comfortable atmosphere in Boston.
"I liked it there, but there were some problems," Aigilani said. "I heard that people here are different than in Nashville. They're used to seeing international students here."
Aigilani was one of about 200 students - including a handful of Americans - who participated in this year's International Orientation (I.O.). The program ran from Sunday through Tuesday and gave Tufts' newest international students a few extra days to get acquainted with each other and with the Boston area.
Tufts and Vanderbilt boast a similar number of international students: 10.8 percent of Tufts' total student body is international compared with 9.2 percent of Vanderbilt's student body. Aigilani, however, said he hopes Tufts will be a more accepting community.
After one day of I.O., the freshman had already found some semblance of home in his new surroundings. Although two of Aigilani's high school classmates are attending Tufts, and a few others are at Boston University, most of his friends stayed at home.
But Aigilani, who was surprised at the number of Middle Eastern students at I.O., insists he's not nervous. "I'm used to being away from my home," he said. "It's really easy for me to adapt."
While Aigilani said he is comfortable living so far away from home, he admits that seeing his family only during winter break will be difficult. "I'll really miss my mom, but I'm used to it," he said. "It's too far away and too expensive to go back and forth."
The orientation included trips to Boston Common, Faneuil Hall, and Newbury Street, as well as bowling and "bull sessions" that introduced students to one another. And while they'll be introduced to their American counterparts today, the I.O. students had no shortage of conversation topics during their week together.
Said one British student to her newfound friends: "To 'pull' someone is to 'snog' someone, which basically means to French kiss them," Talia Scotchbrook explained. "Snogging is basically just more aggressive than pulling."
Scotchbrook, Caitlin Key, Sophia Ortiz, Hanah Paik, and Floks Averman have already discovered some of the differences between students from different regions of the world. On a Sunday night, the freshmen sat in a circle in South Hall, swapping slang terms and sharing stories about home. While Key was chided for her overuse of Boston's favorite adverb "wicked," Paik told the group that "wicked" is outdated in Hong Kong. "We used to say that something was 'so wicked,' instead of saying that it was cool," Paik said.
Paik arrived in New York almost two weeks prior to I.O., but didn't come to Boston until Saturday. "When I first came to New York, there was a lot of culture shock," she said. "People here are really different in general."
According to Paik, attending school so far away from home is fairly common for students from Hong Kong, but that doesn't mean the adjustment is easy. "No matter how confident you are, it's still weird," she said. "I was really excited - nervous, too, but not to the point where I was scared."
For Averman, an American education will be much different from the one she would have received had she stayed in the Netherlands. In Holland, she said, students must choose one academic direction during their first year and stick with that path throughout their time as a student. Here, Averman said she is excited to have the luxury of studying an array of subjects. "It's why I came here," she said.
Paik and Averman agreed that having an international orientation prior to the official freshman orientation was an advantage, but Paik had slight reservations. "I won't really know until I get to freshman orientation. It might be weird that some of us know each other and others won't."
Key and Ortiz were two of the internationally-minded Americans who came to I.O. Both of the freshmen are interested in studying international relations during their time at Tufts.
"I feel like we help the international students feel more comfortable by meeting American students at I.O.," said Ortiz, a Wisconsin native.
"At first, I felt kind of out of place, but everyone has been really friendly," said Key, who is originally from New Hampshire. "Everyone seems disappointed when I tell them where I'm from," she said, laughing.
Tufts senior Neil Pallaver, of Lexington, MA, said she knows how Key and Ortiz feel. The I.O. host advisor participated in the orientation as a freshman, and is leading a group in this year's orientation.
As he sprawled out on a couch in the South Hall lounge last Sunday, he rubbed his eyes. It had been a fun day, he said, but a long one. A dual citizen of France and the U.S., he could relate to the international perspective, but could also provide the international students with some tips for living in Massachusetts.
"I.O. is all about getting to know people," Pallaver said. "It's just plain fun."
