Cultural Integration for Internationals

As an international student, you might occasionally feel alienated when confronted with Swiss culture and customs. You try to adapt but feel lonely and miss your country, family, and friends. Perhaps you have underestimated the time and emotional effort that integrating into another culture requires.

Whether you are from Asia, America, or even Germany, a counseling session will give you the opportunity to talk about your experience and to work out how to integrate and feel at ease with the people and the country you now live in – while still remaining yourself.

Registration

Study abroad
Studying abroad is a challenging experience, and international students have to come to terms with many new situations: being far from home, encountering a foreign culture with unfamiliar ways of interacting, and dealing with a different university system. In particular, missing friends and family can trigger mental health issues in students living abroad. All of this can lead to feelings of insecurity, anxiety and loneliness and be a source of increasing stress. Students who felt mentally healthy at home may lack emotional, cross-cultural and other coping skills necessary to handle high-stress situations which can arise during study abroad.

Mental health criteria
In our ongoing effort to prevent prolonged culture shock and severe mental health issues, the University of Zurich and the ETH endeavor to sensitize international students to possible difficulties abroad. We mainly invite international students to assume responsibility for their well-being. We ask you to observe your state of mental health, and, if necessary, to consider proactive steps. During your stay in Switzerland, we believe you should regularly consider whether or not you fulfill the following criteria for mental well-being:

• you generally feel emotionally and intellectually satisfied
• you are generally able to initiate, develop and sustain personally satisfying relationships
• you feel able to face problems and resolve them
• you are usually confident and positive
• you are aware of others and able to empathize with them
• you are able to enjoy solitude as well as company
• you enjoy your spare time, relax and have fun

If you feel unhappy: it is time to get active!
Adapting to a new place is an intense process, and it may be impossible for you to fulfill all the criteria named above. Nonetheless, if feelings of discontent and stress last longer than 2–3 months, you should actively work toward changing your situation in order to prevent your mood from becoming chronic. We ask you to consider the following proactive steps: First identify obstacles – external, mental and emotional – to your well-being. You should especially try to:

• be active in making friends and social contacts.
• do some fun outdoor activities – the ASVZ offers a wonderful sports program.
• look and ask actively for all the information you need for your studies as well as your personal life.
• decide whether your issues are caused by a lack of language skills. Apart from being a considerable obstacle to success in your studies, lacking language skills can isolate you from Swiss students and peer activities – and make you feel lonely.
• Try not to be fatalistic and resigned.

Psychological Counseling Service
If you would like to talk to a professional about how you can improve your mental well-being during your studies abroad, or if you want to talk about mental health issues, the Psychological Counseling Service is there for you. The Psychological Counseling Service is available to all enrolled students as well as doctoral students at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. It is free of charge and absolutely confidential. Feel free to contact us and make anappointment. We speak different languages.