My name is Henri, I'm from Albania,
and I know it can feel nerve wracking
to think about going to school halfway across the world.
So we sat down with some Rollins international students
to get their honest opinions
about some commonly asked questions
about being an international student at Rollins.
Let's get started.
- Why did you choose Rollins?
Okay, I honestly chose Rollins because of the vibes,
because it's just really nice here, I believe so.
And Rollins really seemed to want me here,
and that's something I desired in a school.
- I did like a shortlist
of whatever I want to have in college
and Rollins ticked all the boxes.
- I found Rollins when I was 13
and I knew then I had to come to Rollins.
When I first walked on campus
and under the shaded pathways and everything
and the bright sun, which we never see in England,
I was like, this is the place I have to go to.
- I think it suited me best
since I'm gonna be an international business major.
And, I mean, the classes are really personal.
- Having small class sizes
and your professor getting to know your name,
for me, that was really important.
- In all of my classes, I think the most that I've had
is like 22 people.
And I can always go to like my professor's office hours.
And I knew that was something that personally like I needed.
So it wasn't such a big change
from high school to college.
- Definitely location is one of the biggest factors.
- Also the beautiful campus
and just the amazing reputation.
- And there's a lot of opportunities here
'cause it's a smaller school.
- I visited campus, I stayed at the Alfond Inn,
I got to interact with professors
and prospective students and current students.
And the two first people that I met on campus
are my two best friends to this day.
- What is it like to be an international student at Rollins?
- It feels very warm and welcoming.
- Rollins is very inclusive with its international students.
- Except I'm still waiting for chips from England
in the dining hall, so...
- It's really endearing in the sense that I always feel
like the brightest spark of color in every room I enter.
It's like, yeah, I'm bringing culture, I'm bringing history,
I'm bringing, honestly, I'm bringing a lot of fabulousness.
That's just like my personality.
- We add to the classes and to the college
like new perspectives of our culture back home.
And it's more like a global view.
- I'm just a student like everybody else,
with my own background, with my life experience,
with my cultural background that I can bring here
and I can try and enrich other people's experience
while also learning from them.
- There's a big community.
You're gonna find people
that are from the same country as you or same situations,
and there's like that tight knit to it.
Also like when you go
and you do your international orientation
like that with a big aspect
to being an international student here
'cause it just really connects you
to other people in the same situation
and also just like really help you acclimate to Rollins.
- There are students from all over the world.
So not only do I get to meet people from my country,
but I also get to meet people
from completely different backgrounds and cultures.
- It's really an eye-opening experience
and something that has developed me
into becoming like a more mature human being.
- What is it like to live in Winter Park
and close to Orlando?
- Ah, it's gorgeous.
And Winter Park is just the cutest
and most gorgeous town ever.
- It feels like you're on holiday, I think,
when you walk down Park Ave.
- So many restaurants, cute little boutiques,
so many things to do.
Also we're the lake, so pretty,
there's just so many water activities to do.
- And the beach is like 45 minutes
away from here.
- We're 20 minutes away from Universal,
35 to 40 minutes away from Disney.
- And also we're very close to downtown
so you also get like that best of both worlds feel
of like being in like a small town
like having that close knit community
but also being like the big city.
- Yeah, what they said.
Everything.
Winter Park and Orlando has everything.
- I'm pretty sure no one has stuff to do as much as we do.
So I think that's really important as a college student
'cause I think that's part of the college experience.
- What support is given to us international students?
- So I actually work in the international office.
We do a lot of like support groups
and a lot of like information-based sessions
where we help students acclimate towards this environment.
- They're gonna take care of you like you their own.
I can speak from personal experience.
- We're so well taken of.
There's so many people we can approach
with the concerns we have,
people who just want to listen to what we have to say.
- My international peer advisors helped me so much.
- The professors are really supportive
and I received a lot of support
despite English not being my first language.
- In our freshman year, We get here one week before
to have like international orientation
so that we can have the experience
to see how it is like to live here in the US.
They gave us some tips.
It's a really good support that we have here.
- How did you make friends?
- It was way easier than I thought.
- In the numerous activities throughout campus,
like sports activities or extracurricular activities,
it's a really good way for you to not only make friends,
but also network based on your major or minor.
- I made friends
through attending a bunch of like the webinars
that Rollins held for us international students
and incoming students during my freshman year.
- I think for me like international orientation was so big.
Like majority of my friend group
I made at international orientation to this day.
- I made a lot of my friends in RCC class.
I think that was very important.
- I was very lucky to make really good friends
with the girls from the volleyball team
who are like amazing human beings.
And that was like my first friend group here at Rollins.
And then I decided to come out for fraternity rush.
I can safely say now
that I wouldn't be the man that I am today
if it had not been for the the experiences
and the relationship that I built
during my time in my fraternity.
- I think the biggest thing that I did
was I just tried to be more confident
than what I actually am.
I kind of put myself out there a bit.
And I remember one of my close friends was walking her dog
down past Bush Science Center,
and I was just like, hey,
you look really cool and you have a really cute dog.
Do you wanna hang out?
And then we did and now we're best friends
and we do everything together.
So it's just like having a bit of confidence
even just to like ask people to hang out
or just to even say hello.
And it just makes a difference.
- Did you experience any culture shock?
- I wouldn't say I experienced a shock.
Maybe just like the slang a little bit at first
for a couple weeks,
but other than that,
it wasn't any negative shock or anything.
- The differences in the sense of humor.
And so I would make a joke or just be slightly sarcastic
and I would be the only one that found it funny.
And so I've had to adapt my humor a little bit,
or sometimes like the words I use.
- For me, I mean, I experienced a lot of culture shock,
especially because not only was I in the US
and meeting American people,
but I was also meeting people
from all over the world as well.
- A culture shock that was nice upon my heart,
I like to call it that way,
was how you are so free to speak your truth here.
- So not too much culture shock.
I saw my sister go to college in the US.
I kind of knew what what I was getting into.
But again, a lot of my friends did.
Like when you're just coming into this country
for the first time,
you're probably gonna have differences
in the way people do things or in class
or just around campus.
But I think that with time, you ease into it
and things start to become normal.
- Yeah, and language also plays a very big factor
in culture shock.
Like coming from a Spanish speaking country
that I'm used to all the time to speaking in Spanish
to all the time speaking English,
it takes some time to adjust a little bit.
- I was a little bit homesick, but it was the first week,
then after that, already getting into the new activities,
into the new routines,
then you start getting into the new culture
and you started to embrace it
as well as it also starts to embrace you.
- You're really good.
- How's the food on campus?
- It's actually pretty good.
Every single day, I think there's at least one option
of something, you're like,
oh my God.
Like do they really have this in a college campus?
- I like the French toast, I like the pancake.
I love the omelet.
Shout out to Miss Charlotte
for all the omelet she's made me.
- I actually am a very picky eater.
So for me to say that the food on campus is good,
it is good.
There's a big variety of food.
I know that there's gluten free options
- If you're vegan, we have vegan options
- At Rollins, we're blessed with a plethora
of different dining options which are also available
at any point from 7:30 AM to 1:00 AM.
We have our marketplace, which is the Campus Center,
which is the main dining hall on campus.
It's all you can eat.
And then we have Dave's Boathouse
where you have gourmet food.
And there's Tar-potle,
which is the Rollins version of Chipotle.
And then the newest addition to campus, which is Fox Lodge,
which has its convenience store,
and the Fox Grill where you place an order online
and they'll immediately
just cook it right there and then for you.
And again, plenty of gourmet options
where you can have both online pickup and mobile delivery.
Can't really ask for much more.
- If you have time,
there's like the thing called TarBucs too.
You can go around the Park Ave.
You can just buy with your TarBucs.
- What is the weather like in Florida?
- It's really good.
Like honestly, I wouldn't change it
for anything in the world.
For me, it's the best weather in the US.
- Yeah, for me as well.
I mean, that was a big factor into why I chose Rollins,
you know, being in Florida.
- I love the weather actually.
I mean, I like the hot weather.
I'm a hot weather person.
- I love the sun. I love the warmth.
- In the summers,
there's also some rains that happen in the afternoon,
but by 6:00 PM, it'll be as if it never happened.
- I came during the winter,
and I was like this is kind of cold.
- It can get a little chilly,
which by Florida the standards is like 60s, maybe 50s.
I remember the very first time I visited campus,
it was minus 20 degrees where I was going to school,
and I get out of the plane
at the Orlando International Airport, it's 90 degrees,
and I just knew that I wanted that
for the rest of my collegiate career.
- What is it like to live on campus?
Hmm, I love living on campus
because of how convenient it is getting to class,
grabbing lunch with friends
or just exploring the different spots
we can hang out on Park Ave.
- Living on campus, I have no regrets.
I mean, I think it's a necessary experience.
- I have a cute story.
I used to have a beagle called Busby
and my roommate also has a beagle.
And so when we both posted to the social media page,
I saw that she had a beagle.
I was like, hey, we have the same dog.
And so then we became friends
and then we decided to be roommates,
but we always say that beagles brought us together.
- Oh my God, that's cute. - Yeah, that's cute.
I like that.
- I think I got really lucky with my roommate.
I did random selection,
but she was also an international student from Panama.
And she's like one of my best friends to this day.
I was just, like she's studying abroad in Italy
and I just went to visit her,
and we've been roommates since freshman year.
- I hit it up very good with my roommates.
Like one of my roommates, he's from Guatemala.
He's one of my best friends now.
- What are the community bathrooms like?
- Not as bad as people think.
- It's like the most asked question.
I mean, like everyone is concerned
about the community bathrooms.
Once you experience it and get used to it,
I mean, you just go on with it.
- In my time here, I've never had to like wait in line
to get in shower or go to the bathroom
or anything like that.
- Was the visa process difficult?
- If you focus on doing everything correctly
and getting help to answer your questions,
it shouldn't be that difficult.
- To be honest, it was not difficult at all.
It was like a tedious process
because you need to do like a lot of things.
you need to follow a process.
- What I always recommend is being organized,
having checklists, writing things down.
- Working in the international office and seeing how
we like handle visa processing and everything,
I think it can be a very burdensome and scary task to do
when you're like 18 years old applying for a visa.
But they offer so much support here,
like constantly emailing students,
making sure that they're getting everything that they need.
So I think that Rollins also does the best
to make it not difficult for you guys.
- How are the international students treated on campus?
- I mean, just like any other student.
It's a pretty open community.
It's a good place to be.
- Everyone treats international students very well.
International students treat each other very well.
- I would say with respect and definitely curiosity.
- Some international students are seen like as exotic,
you know, 'cause they bring experiences from other countries
and they add that touch of diversity to the campus.
- And also like I think the professors
find that we add value in classrooms
just 'cause we can add like different cultural perspectives
and like our own experiences,
and then it kind of creates a more stimulating conversation.
- I have an opinion and I get to speak my mind,
speak my truth, something that I really love.
- What do you like to do on the weekends?
- I think one of my recent favorites
is just to go to the beach
and just relax on the beach on the weekends.
- Go to the parks, go to mall, to the outlets
- Park Avenue, when there's enough restaurants
to go out and eat every night for two months in a row
and not have to eat in the same place twice.
- Just staying home, watching movies,
catching up with some friends.
- A recent go-to of mine
has just been paddle boarding on the lake
'cause it's like free as a Rollins student.
It's so easy, we just love doing that
on Saturday afternoons.
- They have farmers market on the weekends.
- There's this place in Winter Park called Briarpatch.
And,
it's the best place for brunch.
- There's so many places to go.
So many things to do.
You're not gonna get bored here.
- Rollins is it.
Come here.
It's really, really nice.