Coppell High School junior Nanzihe Tong is a first-year exchange student from Ningbo, China. Bringing her culture and study experiences from China, she hopes to share her story to reveal the difficulties international students have to face.

What are the differences between CHS and school in China?

In China, I don’t have much [free] time. However, at CHS, I have a lot of [free] time to do what I want, like playing sports or drawing. I [went] to boarding school in China, we get up at 6 a.m. and study until dinner. We don’t have much time for meals at all because we must go back to study right after. Students must go to bed at the same time, so we work on assignments during daytime. 

For education, in China, we [also didn’t] have many social studies classes like psychology and economics. My favorite class was history.

Also, we didn’t have to move to another room for each period, teachers come to our classroom instead. Our classroom is always the same, and we stay there everyday. At the end of each period, teachers move to another room. However, at CHS, students go to different classroom[s] for each period. I have many opportunities to make friends due to this difference. In China, our classmates are always the same. We have activities like sports competitions in the school, my classmates are also teammates and it’s a really good chance to strengthen relationships.

What is the teaching method in China?

Teachers often give us many assignments for practicing; while at CHS, my teachers provide students opportunities to research and ask questions to understand the problems.

What difficulties have you met moving to the United States?

I’m having communication barrier at the moment. As an international student, it’s a common problem and I need help from other students and teachers to make friends and have comfortable conversations with classmates. 

My classmates and teachers help me a lot by explaining difficult questions, walking me through the process for new projects and try to understand what I want to talk about. Some even help by correcting my pronunciation and giving compliments. These mean a lot to me. Whenever I feel disappointed about myself, I’ll remember what my teachers and classmates motivate me, and I’ll get back on track.

I want to say thank you to my teachers and friends for helping me.

What advice would you give to other international students?

To international students like me, don’t hesitate to ask because students and teachers are nice. You’ll get a lot of help if you let them know the problems. Also, ESL classes are for international students [that] help students to learn English. If you’re not good at English, sign up for that class and the teacher will help you.

What are your goals for this year?

I’m preparing for the SAT exam so I hope to do well on it. One of my goals this year is to make more friends – a great and hard challenge. However, I know that me and other international students can do it. It might take lots of time, efforts or tears, but after all, we’ll get what [are looking for]. A friend always motivates me by telling me her favorite quote: “If you don’t give it a try, you will never know.”

What do you do in your free time?

I often hang out with friends or go shopping with my host family. I’m also passionate [about] makeup.

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