Culture Shock and Its Symptoms on International Middlesex University - Research Proposal Example

Abstract: In order to understand how culture shock and its symptoms on international Middlesex University, we decided to carry out a survey. We developed a questionnaire with a set of ten questions. We issued the questionnaire to seventy five respondents from different countries other than UK. The data collected confirmed that indeed the student’s experienced cultural shock on arriving and that they took over one month in adapting to the new culture. The report gives recommendations on how the students can ease the adaptation process. Table of Contents # Title Page 1. Introduction 3 2. Methodology 3 3. Findings 4 4. Analysis and Discussion 4 5. Conclusion and Recommendations 6 6. References 7 7. Appendices 8 1. Introduction: Culture shock refer to feelings that one experience after living their home culture which they are familiar with to another culture which they are not familiar with. The impact of culture shock is show in form of both physical and mental symptoms. Some of the mental symptoms include feeling of frustration, disorientation and helplessness. The person may also experience physical symptoms which include headaches, stomach aches, diarrhea, fatigue, difficulty in sleeping or even lack of it and feeling of malaise (Brick 1991). The main aim of this research study is to find out whether all the international Middlesex University students experience culture shock and find out if the intensity of the culture shock is as a result of their geographic regions and their backgrounds. 2. Methodology: A questionnaire of ten questions was asked of different international post graduated pre-sessional course students at Middlesex University main building. The majority of students are from Asia and Middle East countries. The questions from one to three explained the background of students to identify the patterns, while the questions from four to eight focused on their feeling and mental symptoms. Moreover, the questions from nine to ten concentrated on solutions and suggestions. The questionnaire was designed on to a spread sheet using MS Excel tools, in order to collect the answers and processes electronically. The data collected from the respondents is processed, also, using MS Excel tools as well as generating charts and graphs. 3. Findings: The data collected from the respondents shows the five most significant and considerable issues which characterize students' behaviors when they are encountered by culture shock. Firstly, in Figure 3.1, the chart demonstrates that how students felt during their first week. Around 42% of students' shows that they are felt excited, while 25% of students felt homesick and 16% felt normal. However, all of these feeling only last for a short time. Secondly, in figure 3.2, the chart illustrates the difficult things that students had to cope with. Communication was significant shown difficult for them (35%), while some students said that they encountered some difficulties to deal with food (25%). Only few students found nothing were difficult (7%).Thirdly, in figure 3.3, the chart shows the major different between their own culture and the UKs’ culture. The most different is weather (forty-three percent), while the least different is the food (sixteen percent).Fourthly, in figure 3.4, the chart examines what they had done to adjust themselves. Around 37% of students said that they asked questions to local people, while 35% tend to observe others. Finally, in figure 3.5, the chart illustrate different types of mental symptoms that encountered by students since they arrived. Around 36% of students are suffering to organize their sleeping schedule, while only 16% of student felt comfortable. 4. Discussion and Analysis: According to Brick, (1991) Culture shock refers to what a person who has moved from their culture to a foreign culture of experiences. They experience shock as a result of moving from the culture they are used to a new culture as they try to get used to culture shock symptoms. Culture shock usually happens when an individual has to study, work, sleep and even eating in a completely new food and unfamiliar environment. The main aim of this research study was to find out whether some of the international Middlesex university students experience culture shock. From the finding, we found out Most of the students did not go to another culture before and for this reason they were experiencing cultural shock symptoms. According to Brick (1991) when people move from a familiar culture to unfamiliar cultural shock symptoms which include headaches, stomach aches, fatigue, difficulty in sleeping and feeling of malaise. The survey showed that most international students of Middlesex University were at first excited on the first week of arrival but after sometime, they started realized that things were very different from those in their culture. Some of them experience some of the symptoms of culture shock. We also found out that most of the respondents took a long time in the euphoria stage and the students found everything about the new culture interesting and it is in this stage that the symptoms of culture shock were experienced (Baddy D & Paton R, 1998). For example, most of the international students of Middlesex University found it difficult to cope with the new language of communication. Some of them also found it difficult cope with the food of the host culture as well as the weather. However, we found out that most of the international students of Middlesex University did not have a problem coping with the mode of transport in London. We wanted to know whether the international students of Middlesex University had now to adapt to the new culture or not. Many of the international students of Middlesex University now feel familiar with the new culture while quite of them still feel uncomfortable with the new culture and others still find it challenging. This mean that most of the students have been are still in the adjustment stage and most of the students have just acquire enough knowledge to help them operate in the new culture while they still remain outsiders in much aspects. However, we learn that with time the international students had been able to successfully go through adjustment and acceptance stage of adapting to the new culture It can be concluded that the results show that most of the respondents experienced cultural shock and they had a difficult time to adapt to new culture. Most of the respondents found difficult to cope with thelanguage and they did not like the English food as well as the weather. 5. Conclusion and Recommendations: It can be concluded that all the new international students of Middlesex University experienced culture shock a few days or immediately after arriving in London. However, with time they learned new ways of coping with the shock. Because of this, we would like to recommend the following to help the students adapt. Firstly, they should always keep in touch with their friends and family back at home who will help do away with homesickness. Secondly, they should try and make new friends and especially other new international students who they can shares with their experiences. In accordance to Brick (1991), they should have background culture study of the new culture so as to understand it. They should also find people of similar culture who have successful gone through the experience new culture adjustment. Finally, they should also be prepared to ask questions about things that they don’t understand from the local people. 6. References: Boddy D & Paton R, 1998, The International Context of management in Management, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall, pp88-97. Brick, J., "Culture shock", 1991, in China: A Handbook in intercultural Communication, Sydney, National Center For English Language Teaching And Research, pp.9-16. 7. Appendices: Appendix1: Supermarkets Questionnaire Appendix2: Statistics Apendix3: Graphs Read More