Self-management for international students

Digitalisation, wireless connectivity, social media, online and hybrid learning, only to name a few, have made life of young people and especially those who intend to pursue higher education abroad demanding, complex, competitive and challenging.

To survive and thrive in such circumstances necessitates self-management, among other things. Self-management may be considered as your ability to manage or control yourself towards goal achievement. Alternatively, self-management may also be considered as your location on the right track towards goal fulfilment.

Goal fulfilment, in this context, is emphasised mainly to adjust to the new educational environment and graduate timely. The macro-objective of this text is to focus on self-management of international students who are going to start UAS or university education in a foreign country. The micro-objective is to focus on, for instance, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Nepalese, Mexican, Vietnamese or any international student coming to study at Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) or Tampere University.

Students going abroad for higher education face a few additional dilemmas compared to native fellows. Consequently, students should make greater effort in self-management for academic success while studying abroad. The following seven self-management tips may be effective in this regard. 

1. Time management is crucial. The supply of time is limited. When counted day and night, there are altogether twenty-four hours to use. These twenty-four hours are divided for study, work, sleep, household work and free-time activities. Due to different reasons, proper management of time may at first be a bit complex in a new country. However, international degree students should gradually utilise their time for punctually complying with deadlines, timely completing courses and graduating on time. To make the best use of the limited time at hand, international students should have a daily, weekly, monthly, semesterly and yearly schedule. This is even more important for the international students who come from countries where flexible and circular concept of time is part of daily life. In Finland, linear and inflexible use of time is the general norm. Therefore, stick to the timetable and deadlines. 

2. Emotional strength is important. Once abroad, feeling lonely is a common phenomenon to most. It takes time to get adjusted to the new place and new environment. Consequently, patience and mental strength are important. To break the loneliness, many students only mingle with their fellow citizens outside the campus. This is probably not so rational from the practical point of view. Of course, you can interact with your fellow citizens but interaction with the locals and other international students is crucial as well. Interaction with students from diverse national backgrounds may help you to develop a global outlook, which is very important in the era of internationalisation to find work and build a network – the bigger the network, the stronger you are in the globalised world. Maintain your network through regular communication if possible. A sustainable network may be instrumental for emotional strength. 

3. Task management is inevitable. Nowadays so many young people are overwhelmed by tasks, something which creates exhaustion in them. In this digital era, it is sometimes difficult to separate tasks from task doers due to the widespread internet connection and mobile devices. It seems like tasks follow you wherever you go. This requires proper task management. The principal step in task management may be to prepare a “to do list.” Once you have a “to do list,” you can identify from the list those tasks which need immediate action and the tasks which you can do later. In addition, you may identify the tasks which you do not need to do by yourself, but request other people to do them on behalf of you, for instance friends, relatives or teammates. Proper task management may give you relief from stress and assist you to perform tasks on time and according to order.

4. Take very good care of your health. Maintaining health is crucial for all including international students coming to study at TAMK or Tampere University. Good health may contribute positively to coping with educational stress and yield better academic outcome. In your daily routine, keep some time for your health which may include doing yoga, going out for a walk, mindfulness practice or group sports.  If you are a student of TAMK or Tampere University, you have a lot of opportunities for individual or group health and exercise. Consider your circumstances. Start small if you have never been to gym or done exercise before. Gradually expand your exercise duration. Spending “one hour” daily for health and exercise may be helpful for sustainable health. Remember that there is no such thing as “overdose” in exercise, at least in freehand exercise. Have you taken full advantage of the health and well-being opportunities offered to you by your UAS or university?  If you have habits which harm your health and well-being, try your best to break those if you can.   

5. Empower yourself with local and national information. Information is power. The more and better information you have, the more you will be able to control events. Due to a new higher education institution, new city and new country you may have a lot of questions and many unknown things to learn. It is usual that your higher education institution will provide you with basic information for living, coping with the education system, performing banking issues, completing official procedures, finding hobby places and knowing basics of culture during the orientation week. In addition, international students should be curious to know about the culture and more importantly how things are done in the host country where the work culture should get priority. You may make an information search list which may contain things like (a) teacher-student relationship in learning and teaching environment; (b) local and national happenings and celebrations; (c) ways of interaction with locals; (d) means to adjust to the host culture to reduce cultural shock; (e) budget shopping places to buy necessary goods; (f) family system in the host country; (h) relationship building tips with locals (i) functioning of organisations and so on.  Remember that this list may expand depending upon your quest for new information. 

6. Embrace change. As human beings, we all have our own personality, culture, way of life and behaviour pattern. These are shaped and developed by our surroundings where we are born and brought up. The hardest thing what we encounter in our daily life is to bring change in us, more importantly quick and rapid change. In this text, change does not mean turning to a completely opposite direction, but change is a way to adjust to different circumstances. Resisting change is common to human beings. Despite resistance, change is an integral part of our life. For international students, embracing change is inevitable for adjusting to a different environment and new education system. Nurturing a change-oriented mindset might assist you to have academic success and cope with the new environment. Change imposed from outside does not work well, and consequently change from within is advisable. Too many times our good intensions fail because deep down, we really do not want to change – we want to keep our old way of life. Consequently, we must genuinely try out change from the bottom of our heart. 

7. Know yourself. It is very important to find out who you really are. How much do you know about yourself is a controversial issue. According to Johari’s window, (a) there is an open self of each person, which has information about you that both you and others know; (b) there is a hidden self, which has information about you that you know but others do not know; (c) there is still a blind self,  which contains information about you that you do not know but others know; (d) finally there is an area called unknown self, which contains information about you that neither you nor others know. Therefore, it would be impossible for you to know all about yourself. Despite the limitation of knowing yourself completely, plans and decisions about what to do, why to do, how to do, when to do and where to do should be undertaken by self-evaluation. In this regard, the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats) model, which is mainly used in the business and management context, may be of help. The SWOT analysis may be a good tool to have a better overview and understanding of your personal, academic and professional life.

These seven self-management tips are not the end to knowing yourself but the beginning. Managing yourself in the personal, academic or professional context is a complex issue because it is not only dependent upon yourself but also upon the surroundings. We all are directly or indirectly a product of our surroundings. These seven self-management tips would help you have a better overview and understanding of yourself. In addition, these tips would pave the way to acquiring further tips on self-management.    

Writer: Dr. Kazi Shaidul Halim: Teacher & researcher