Nternational Students: A Population Facing Significant Stress| Biomed Grid

Stress is a condition for which both treatments, and the patient's ability to change and adapt, partially depend upon environmental factors. Some groups are particularly prone to exposure to significant stressors. The purpose of this opinion piece is to draw awareness of the significant stressors faced by a particular group of underserved individuals who bear a large burden of stressors while living almost unnoticed amongst us. International students are prevalent on all major university campuses, medical schools, stem subject programs and graduate colleges across the United States. Institutions eagerly cash payments for tuition, lodging and academic supplies but seldom devote resources to the mental health of this group. Their level of stress is unique, because it comes from so many different areas of life, all at potentially debilitating levels [1]. Let's take a moment to reflect on the various sources of stress that this group faces. First, and most obvious, is academic stress. International students are often in graduate programs or intensely competitive STEM fields. They come from highly competitive environments (e.g. China and India) and enter programs in the United States which then become highly competitive because of their presence. Second, language stress is present in almost all cases. It is exhausting (both physically and mentally) to function constantly in a foreign language. Internationals in academic institutions are often affected disproportionately by language stress because the nature of their academic programs requires that they master nuances of meaning in order to excel. It is difficult to command a language at a level which allows an understanding of nuance, much less be engaged in academic competition utilizing nuance and its application in examinations and term papers [1].