Faris Alharthy ’20 is a senior from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — an 11-hour plane ride from Choate. Photo by Jessie Goodwin/The Choate News
As a school that prides itself on its diversity, Choate is home to students from across the globe. Last week, I had the opportunity to talk with some of Choate’s many international students about their experiences on campus.
When asked what their experience at Choate has been like, responses varied from the wealth of new opportunities offered at Choate to the rather tumultuous nature of adjusting to campus life. Dasha Asienga ’20, a senior from Nairobi, Kenya, talked of how her experience at Choate has had its ups and downs, saying, “Coming to Choate was difficult at first, because I was suddenly in a new place for a prolonged period of time, and I was also experiencing this new life alone, no longer as a tourist as I had in the past.” For Asienga, getting acclimated to the food, way of speaking, and weather in Connecticut was difficult. She credits the tremendous support she’s received “from so many people and a few clubs here” for her adjustment.
Similarly, PJ Sethbhakdi ’20, a senior from Nonthaburi, Thailand, had a similarly challenging transition period. He said, “I guess it was just the struggle to adjust to boarding life that made my experience difficult at first. However, Choate has given me many different opportunities to make me feel connected to its community.” He believes that with each additional year at Choate, his experience on campus has only gotten better.
Many international students have found Choate to be much more diverse, both in culture and activities, than their previous schools. Sesame Gaetsaloe ’21, a junior from Gaborone, Botswana, explained that Choate is very different from her previous school, a boarding school in South Africa. She explained that she was one of only five international students in her grade in South Africa. Here at Choate, she finds greater diversity in the international student community, but simultaneously notes that there is still a common understanding and shared experience among students, which she finds comforting. “Acknowledgment of everyone’s different backgrounds is really lovely,” Gaetsaloe said.
Faris Alharthy ’20, a senior from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, also commented on the greater diversity of courses offered at Choate. “My old school only had 12 courses in total, and they were very general. I would study science, art, history, geography, and math. At Choate, there are so many courses in each of those disciplines, and they are more specific. I can actually choose what exactly I want to study,” he said.
Asienga has found the learning environment at Choate vastly different from her previous school. “My old school was very structured and very formal. I had no relationship with my teachers outside of class, and it was almost a crime to question or challenge a teacher in class,” she said. “I’ve enjoyed the learning environment at Choate as I’ve been able to form relationships with my teachers outside of class on the sports fields and in the dorms. It’s also changed the way that I approach learning as less of a relaying of information from an authority figure to the student, and more of a way of expanding my knowledge by asking questions and approaching the material from different perspectives.”
Many international students experienced a culture shock in the beginning of their transition to boarding school. Gaetsaloe finds that there are always a few cultural differences that she still has to ask for explanations for, but as the years pass, those moments have happened less frequently. Alharthy explained, “Before coming to Choate, I was in the same school for 14 years. It was one of four day schools in Jeddah that nearly everyone went to. Many of my friends I had known since I was three years old. Because I was so used to living around the same people, the same school, and the same daily life, it was difficult to transition to Choate at first.” He continued, “But it also opened my eyes to more things. Something that many people here may see as normal, like using an Uber or same-day mail delivery, don’t exist where I come from. It makes me appreciate and notice the smaller things that others might take for granted.”
Ideally, Asienga would want to live far enough from school that she could still be a boarder, but close enough that she could go home if she ever really needed to. “It is difficult, as a teenager, to come to terms with the fact that I can’t just go home for family birthdays, my grandparent’s burial, my friend’s graduation, because I can’t just hop on a plane for a 15-hour flight for the weekend,” she said. Sethbhakdi echoed this sentiment, explaining how it is hard to be away from his family for months, and how it is even harder to say goodbye whenever he has to come back to Choate after breaks.
Although being far away from family is tough, many of Choate’s international students have accepted the School as their second home. Through support from friends and faculty, students can more easily adjust to the transition to boarding school in the United States. The diversity of people and opportunities Choate offers make it a place students from across the world choose to return to year after year.
