International Student perspective
By Bianca Gonzalez
FRESNO (KFSR) － Adrian Porras is a 38-year-old Communications major at Fresno State who grew up in Oaxaca, Mexico and came to the U.S. at 16 years old when he wanted to get a greater education.
“So my reason for immigration was because I wanted to improve my life,” said Porras.
“Luckily, I met people who encouraged me to take English classes and that field when I was working there. When I started learning English, I started liking it, and little by little, I noticed that I wasn’t learning or getting good at it. Luckily, I met the vice president at a college I attended, and it’s the place where I got my GED, and luckily when I graduated, she asked me what I wanted to do, and I just told her that I just wanted to take English 101 because I feel like it was the only thing that I could do because I am an academic student and then she encouraged me to continue because she said there were opportunities for everyone in this state actually and then she told me to obtain my regular classes and graduate from my other college and attend university and well here I am.”
Going to college at Fresno State was an easy choice for Porras because of its cheaper tuition and reminds him of home.
“I consider it symbolic because I mentioned when I got here, it was Fresno, so I wanted to put the last piece of my education here in Fresno like closing a cycle,” said Porras.
“Then this is kind of funny because the mascot from my last college was a bulldog, and Fresno State has an actual bulldog, so I want to stay in the same bulldog family from bulldog to bulldog, and besides my counselor. Since some of my teachers came here to Fresno State, they got very good comments and encouraged me to come here. To be honest, when I came on a field trip, I felt accepted because this university welcomes everyone. It doesn’t matter where you come from, how old you are, or what economic status you belong to. You are welcome.”
Making a transition from a place like Mexico to the United States is sure to be different. Culture Shock was something Porras had a hard time dealing with, especially when it came to speaking.
“It was pretty different. It was the language completely different, but I feel so dumb when I wanted to communicate or express what I was thinking or when I was looking for directions,” Porras said.
Getting an education is something that’s very important to Porras. Being a communications major, he hopes to encourage other people to be the best versions of themselves, especially young people.
“It doesn’t matter how long it takes because it’s very important, and I think it’s from the mental aspects it opens your mind to everything you learn more stuff and basically the reason why I chose communications is that I like to talk to people but in an inspiring way for example to pursue their goals. I want to be a motivational speaker, but I want to be also a high school counselor because I think high school students are at a crucial age when they are undecided if they are going to continue their education or not or get a common job or stay there but there are consequences because later they may have a family or they want to become professionals or they want to get more income and due to the lack of certificate of education they don’t get it then they get frustrated and blaming everyone and everything so that’s my point I want to go into communications be a motivational speaker and inspire basically students.”
After spending much time here, he believes that the best thing any international student can do when going to a new country is their language.
“I think English is very important for mental. I encourage people to continue their education, and when we come to the U.S., we should consider their English right away because we need to communicate and understand when we are filling out an application or when we go to the clinic or hospital or to a restaurant or to buy something or to ask for directions because we feel so dumb when we are on that situation and basically we cannot be relying on others to translate because sometimes those people are not around and besides I know technology by now is on hand and very advanced but sometimes we don’t even know how to use it so I think English is a very fundamental factor to stay in this country,” Porras said.
To future international students, Porras offers his advice to those who may contemplate whether or not to take this kind of chance.
“They must come because I think this a very wide range of cultural backgrounds in this university and I think we can learn from everyone and open our minds and so to different cultures and learn from everyone and actually there might be a few differences but there are more similarities because we all come from different countries and immigration so we must be connected to everyone because we go through things like misdoing our countries and missing our families so we can share stories you know I don’t think this is a bad thing you know I think this is ver very good and I have been enjoying it and recommend everyone to come and do the same,” Porras said.
Porras is in his last year at Fresno State and hopes to learn even more and inspire others along the way.