What challenges do international

students at NHL Stenden face when

studying abroad

Introduction
Over the last twenty years, many people choose to go abroad for

studying. In fact, studying abroad helps students to gain

experiences, not only in short-term with the knowledge about

intercultural understanding or languages but also in long-term with

a final degree (Maureen, 2006). On the other hand, according to

Rouhollah, Leila and Maryam 2015, receiving education in different

systems is the main purpose for international student. While Lee

and Rice (2007) and Evivie (2009) stated “receiving their education

in a different setting allows international student to gain a deeper

appreciation of the culture, values and beliefs of their host

countries while making them cultural ambassadors of their home

countries.” However, studying abroad also brings international

students many challenges which they have to face to achieve their

goal. Generally, international students experience more anxiety,

stress, homesickness and loneliness than domestic students

(Mauureen, 2006). Most students are first time leaving their

country and also living alone, living in a different place

(atmosphere, environment, weather etc.) and learning new

language which is a big challenge for international students,

especially some students are still young and disorenting in order to

how to handle both their studies as well as their personal life.

Following the changes of the world and education development in

European countries, there are more and more students choose

these nations as the studying destination. One of them is The

Netherlands – one of the countries which have the best education

system in Europe. This study provides some difficulties that

international students had in The Netherlands, in order to get an

overview of obstacles international students face. For more

specific, this article aims to the challenges of international students

at NHL Stenden face when studying abroad.

Literature Review
This chapter gives the description for the most popular challenges

which international students at NHL Stenden have to face when

studying abroad by some researches. This project focus on

researching about two groups of challenge:

- Educational context

- Cultural adjustment
This section begins with the Dutch education system.

Result

CHALLENGES
4

0
Different Weather Education Transport Homesick Living Other
Culture System Condition

Figure 1 informs the most popular challenges which international

students in NHL Stenden have to face when studying abroad.

According to the finding, the survey for 10 students with different

culture, there are up to 3 students who suppose that different

culture is the most challenge. Homesick gets the 2nd place when

there are 2 students choose it as the challenge. Others have the

same consequences with only 1 student’s choice for each

challenge.
 CULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS
12

10

0
Disagree Neutral Agree Total

Figure 2 shows that how many student who appreciate that cultural

misunderstanding is as a challenge or not.