About International Student Counsel
Leaving home to attend college or graduate school is a big step—and leaving your home country can be even scarier. Want to study in the United States? Find out how to succeed from undergraduate and graduate international students, who offer advice based on their experiences pursuing business, engineering, computer science, math, and other majors at U.S. schools. Admissions officials and experts also weigh in with tips so you don’t get lost in translation. Got a question? E-mail
If you are like most international students, you are probably pretty comfortable reading and writing in English, but not as comfortable listening and speaking in the language.
Once you are in the U.S., you will soon realize that the level of conversational English that helped you score well on the TOEFL is not enough to help you get by comfortably in a U.S. college environment.
Below are some tips to help you strengthen your conversational skills, which will likely help you adapt more quickly to your new academic and social environment in the U.S.
1. Practice before you arrive: Mai-Linh Bui wrote a great post about how international students can strengthen their English skills over the summer, before they get to campus. Part of her advice is to keep practicing English.
Like Mai-Linh mentioned, you will probably enjoy practicing English a lot more when you don’t have to prepare for a test. I spent an entire, awesome summer listening to and translating Britney Spears songs – and I do not regret it at all.