Semester Perspective: International MNO Student Will Slattery’s Take
It can be a little strange coming from a relatively small university to a massive institution like Syracuse. I studied journalism in the third biggest university in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. So coming here was like going from being a small fish in a small pond to a small fish in an ocean.
That feeling of unpreparedness gets magnified when you start boot camp. I knew for months in advance that we would have 40 hour weeks that wouldn’t even cover the work we had to do outside of class hours. But knowing you are going to get a piano dropped on your head doesn’t make it much easier to deal with.
Do you get a little homesick as an international student? Sure, there is a little bit of that. While many Americans live almost as far from Syracuse as I do, distance wise, the time difference in Ireland makes it harder to remain in contact with people. Sometimes, at the start of boot camp, it could be a little lonely at night because all my friends would be in bed and the early starts meant you could do little but stay in and prepare for your next class.
It didn’t help that many of my friends didn’t have a clue where I was going. In their minds they made the association: Syracuse+ New York State= Will lives in a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park and has classes on 5th avenue. I still get Facebook messages saying “How is NYC?”
At this stage I just say “Great, went to the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building today!!!”
A lot of Irish people my age get J1 visas and spend the summer working and partying in US cities. It is seen as a rite of passage for Irish youths and is something we all want to tick off our bucket list. So you can imagine my demoralized face as I would scroll through Facebook and see photos of my friends in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas while my day was made up of pitching story ideas and studying for our morning news quizzes.
But one thing got me over my jealousy of my friends’ Vegas weekends: my new friends. Just because you are grad students doesn’t mean that you are too old to make new friends. Boot camp really does create a sense of togetherness that transcends what part of the country or the world you are from and where you went to undergrad.
Everyone has the same hours and has to do the same assignments. It is important to have a laugh and a joke with your classmates so your world doesn’t entirely become engulfed by the daunting workload. The first week of boot camp gives you the opportunity to get to know your classmates and spend some time with them. That was especially important to me as an international student.
People probably didn’t know what to make of me at first with my thick accent and tuft of red hair. But we had a class bonding session at Faegans (surprise, surprise; an Irish bar!) and we all realised that we had a lot more in common than we thought.
Boot camp is such a fast paced environment that bonds form much quicker than in undergrad. By the end of week one our class had already gelled well and from then out we dealt with our news reporting and graphics classes together.
You have a lot of people to turn to if you have a problem. God knows what my eventual grade would have been in graphics if I didn’t have a few classmates to show me how to better use the software.
Boot camp will test your work ethic, perseverance and your journalism skills but with the help of your classmates you will be able to get through it.
