Being an African Student: Stories of Opportunity and Determination

Abstract

Being an African Student is a writeup of a study that investigated acculturative experiences of African international students at one university in the United States. The study also investigated different strategies by which African students adjusted to their new social and academic environments. The author examined pre-acculturative orientations of the participants portraying the mixed feelings associated with their sojourning experiences to the United States. As depicted from the stories of the participants, the period of departure from their respective home countries is characterized by a mixture of euphoric feelings of realizing the American dream and feelings of anxiety and fear of the unknown.