At the end of June 2000, I retired from a state university in the US Midwest, where I worked for twenty-one years as a "foreign student adviser". The following year, my husband and I left the US to live in the Philippines. I had migrated to the US in the mid-sixties, where I settled in the Midwest as the wife of a faculty member and where I volunteered with a university organization helping international visitors. I did not realize it then, but when I signed up to volunteer, I was launching my career in international education, without even knowing that there was such a discipline. I just wanted to satisfy my almost rude curiosity to know people from other countries, a curiosity that grew out of my desire to explore what lay beyond the confines of my little Bicol hometown.

Higher education institutions in the United States have international offices that cater to the needs of their foreign students and post-doctoral visitors. I interned in the International Office as a graduate student and slid into a full time position as an adviser after I got my degree. I started working first with international students, but ended up advising two other groups: American students outbound for their junior year study abroad and post-doctoral researchers and professors.

Most of the population with whom I worked fell into the 16 to 30 year old bracket, mostly graduate students and a few undergraduates. American undergraduate schools dropped the practice of in loco parentis in the 19^th century, but as advisers, my colleagues and I felt some parental responsibility for the 16- to 22-year old international students who would be living thousands of miles away from their parents, many for the first time, and hard put to control newly unleashed, imperious hormones. I found myself re-enacting my maternal role all over again, ten years after my own son graduated. Being young, many of the students inevitably became involved in cross-cultural romances and my colleagues and I were almost always privy to a number of romantic tales. Many times we were guests at splendid weddings that combined Western and traditional practices. I did, however, witness some heartrending break-ups where couples would be so deeply in love they forgot how difficult it would be to close the cultural and generational gaps that separated them from their parents' blessings. There were some irrepressible personalities who became part of our office lore. One was the daughter of a Nigerian general who came to the University at the peak of the Nigerian oil boom. She had so much money that she flew to London weekly for a manicure and a hot oil treatment. And I thought Filipinos had a monopoly on sinful and ludicrous consumption! Several dramatic situations challenged my perception of the "quiet academe". I knew graduate students threatening suicide for failing their doctoral defense or female students traumatized by sexual harassment from lecherous professors. Unfortunately, some of the suicide threats succeeded and we had the sad duty of informing parents and the grim job of arranging the last flight home.

Preparing American students for their junior year abroad was an eye-opener. Before this job, I had always thought of them as savvy independent sophisticates. I was as naïve as the land -locked, corn-fed Midwestern American youngsters I was trying to advise. My biggest mistake was in assuming that high-achieving students would succeed in any foreign university . I still remember the first student, a smart young woman, articulate in both English and Spanish whom I sent to our exchange university in Madrid. No sooner had she set foot in her apartment in Madrid than she was on the phone to her mother, asking for a return plane ticket. Yet there were intrepid souls like the pre-med student who had more spunk than franc, bicycling all the way from De Gaulle Airport to his university in York, England. Before studying abroad, many American kids firmly believe that "America is No. 1". Inevitably, their foreign peers would jolt them into reality with a hard lesson in global politics: America is not No.1 universally.

Working with post-doctoral professors and researchers required a different set of skills, as generally, this group is older and more senior They come to the US to collaborate on a research project, co-author a book or teach. Many of them had studied in the US for their doctoral degrees. I knew some of them when they were studying for their graduate degrees at this same university years ago, so we had the pleasure of renewing acquaintances, marveling at how quickly the years have passed. Although the problems presented by this group are different, they were no less intense, involving as they did such issues as professional integrity and plagiarism, sexual harassment and "slave driving".

As professionals working with internationals, my colleagues and I had to keep abreast with international events so we could be pro-active on behalf of our clientele. The hostage-taking crisis in Iran and the oil bust in the 70s, the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 1990s, the Gulf War, the Asian economic crisis, any mishap involving international flights, all these touched the lives of our clientele. Inevitably, we got involved to extend assistance.

As an Asian-American professional, I was not so naïve as to think that the US government accepted international students into their schools out of pure altruism. International students are valued for the diversity they provide to the campus and the opportunity they give American students to learn about other cultures, preparing them to live in an increasingly global world. Educating these international students in the US is the surest way for the US to spread American culture, influence and brand names around the world. Equally important, nearly a million international students enrolled in American schools spend close to $7.5 billion annually for tuition and living expenses in the US.

My profession as an "international student adviser" was a true Godsend, one of those jobs for which you were "paid for doing what you love to do". I did not become rich, but I count many other rewards instead, among them the numerous friends I made from all over the world who welcome me to their homes. Words like "Chechen" or "Tutsi" ceased to be mere words I hear on CNN, but people I have met and talked to and through whom I have learned to rein in mindless condemnations and easy generalities. I picked up useful phrases such as "Inshaalah", "Yoboseo", etc. which, although spoken with a funny accent always elicited a smile or broke the ice in tense situations. I am gratified that I had the opportunity to help some potential national leaders complete their studies, enjoy their college life, appreciate another culture and broaden their vision of the world, and that I did my part in shaping a portion of the future human capital of the world.

© 2005-2006 Violeta P. Hughes-Davis
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