Pre-Departure Cultural Preparation for International Students

Abstract

As international students continue influencing U.S. higher educational systems, greater attention is placed on innovative cross-cultural curriculum as well as international student recruitment and retention policies. To contribute research-based implications for practice, the authors introduces findings from a phenomenological study which examined pre-departure and post-arrival experiences of eastern Asian undergraduate international students who either completed a pre-departure cultural preparation treatment or received the university's standard international student services at a western U.S. research university. This study contributes a new understanding of one pre-departure online cultural preparation treatment that increased cultural knowledge and cross-cultural coping in addition to eastern Asian students' recommendations for U.S. higher education to improve international education's pre-departure and post-arrival processes.