Features of Perception of the City of Kharkiv by Foreign Students (According to the Questionnaire)

Abstract

In the article the author analyzes the results of the survey of foreign students in Kharkiv. 182 students from 10 countries were interviewed. The survey was conducted exclusively among students of the first year of study, however, some of the respondents have the age in the range of 20 to 25 years, which can be equated to 3-5 courses of Ukrainian students. On the example of foreign students of Kharkiv National University, the author explores the intercultural sensitivity and perception of foreigners of Ukrainian city. International students have been found to have some knowledge of the city, which is shaped by the process of comparison with their experience. For the foreign students, Kharkiv is primarily a student city. It is noteworthy that, in most cases, students who called Kharkiv a "student city" consider it a typical "Ukrainian city". This may also indicate their perception of Ukraine in general. Despite the answer about good orientation in the city, the majority of the respondents had difficulty identifying a specific object or monument that forms a certain "face of the city". The questioning shows that they have very limited city traffic. For the most part, they refer to the city's face as the V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Obviously, the knowledge of these students in the surrounding urban space is very low. A large number of students (based on the experience of their culture) prefer to communicate in their own environment and are not inclined to learn about the features of the city. Therefore, the question remains how to help students move to new levels of understanding of urban space and minimize the "cultural shock" by including them in urban space. The study of the specificity of the perception of the city by foreign residents is one of the variants of the study of intercultural communication, which increasingly determines the face not only of a city, but also of our time.