 Hello from the University of Michigan, Reckham Graduate School, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. We're really pleased to have you join us today for the student-to-student discussion for new international students. It's a sunny day here in Michigan, and we look forward to you when you can join us live, but we're happy to have you here on the broadcast today. My name is Paula Wishart, and I'm a program officer for Reckham Graduate School, and I'll be moderating the panel today. Our panel consists of five current international students who will share their experiences of studying and living in the United States, and in a moment they'll introduce themselves. Also joining us is Natalie Bartolacci, who will be moderating the questions you send online and Kate Zeng from the International Center. Also with us is Kate Zeng from the International Center. Let me take a moment to allow Natalie and Kate to introduce themselves. Natalie? Hi, my name is Natalie Bartolacci, and I'm a program officer at Reckham Graduate School, and I wanted to let you know we'll be sharing the information that is covered today with you in various formats throughout the summer, so just stay tuned. Happy to have you here. Okay. All right. Good morning, everyone. Well, I guess here. Good morning, everyone. And my name is Kate Zeng. I'm the program coordinator working at the International Center, and we're very excited for this opportunity, and we hope you will enjoy it. Great. Thank you. So let's begin with an opening question, and for this opening question, each panelist will introduce him or herself and share their perspective. There we'll continue the discussion with questions that we have on this end, but you are also welcome to participate as we go. Feel free to send a question at any time. So for the opening question, what are things that helped you create a smooth transition when you came here to Michigan? Let me start here. Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Deshaari Mukherjee. I'm a second year graduate student here in the Department of Microbiology and Unilogy. I come from India. And so the things that I considered to make my transition smooth, two of the things were housing and transportation, because I do not have a card. It was important for me to find a house that is connected, well-connected on a bus route. These are information that you can find on the website, even on the International Center website of the University of Michigan, and other websites like Craig's List. Okay. Hi, everyone. I'm James Jalioma. So I'm a second year graduate student in the Department of Chemistry, and I come from China. So I still remember the time I first came to the U.S. It's last year, late June. So when I came here, I quite worried about the housing because I came late and there were not really a lot of available housing. So luckily, I tried to find some resources to help me. I found the International Center website really useful. They have a whole housing section, and I just go through them. They provide, like, well, the places you can start with. So I just found a whole list of all the local agencies of those leasing offices. Then, I mean, before that, I never called someone using English. Then I do that, like, in one day, I'm calling, like, 20 different local agencies and asking if they get any available apartments. Then I just, like, get an appointment, and I just go there, take a bus, and have a look at those apartments. And I found one I really loved. Then I just, before I signed the contract, I know there were, because in the International Center, they provide you a lot of suggestions, like, well, the places you need to be careful about those contracts, those P4s you should avoid. Then I see, wow, this contract is perfect. Then I just signed it, and I live in my apartments for, like, a whole year, and nothing happened. And it's really sweet. So, I mean, like, the first time you come here, you will feel really terrified. But, I mean, there are really a great lot of resources online available for you that will try to help you making a smooth transition. And just be confident, don't be terrified. Thanks. Hi, I'm Ufa. I'm a first-year graduate student in School of Natural Resources and Environment. For some reason, I felt like I was lucky, because I have a good friend who were in the same college, same major, and we decided to live together. And we both searched for the apartments. But at the time, we were kind of late. We planned to arrive in mid-August and until mid-July, we didn't have a house. Yeah, and at that time, I was on a vacation. So my friend, she searched for an apartment. And we have already, there is already, one people live in an apartment. So, and when we arrived, our roommate, she helped us with the transportation because she had a car. And she took us around off the Ann Arbor. And for the shopping or some tips that we can make our life easy in the town. So for some reason, I felt I was lucky. But there are some suggestions for the housing because we are not quite familiar with housing in the US. So we use tools like the Chinese office use. There are some BBS forum that people will exchange information on housing. I think that is helpful for international students. If you can send, there are some such things in your country that are popular, that would be helpful. Hi, everyone. I'm Nebi Be. I'm a second year PhD student at the Department of Molecular Development and Cellular Biology. And I'm from Turkey. And my advice actually will be about the first day since my first day was not so smooth. So when I came here, I lost my luggage at the airport. And I just realized that my phone was not working and the shuttle that I arranged beforehand was gone. And so my advice, first advice will be just make sure that your phone is working in the US and also have some phone numbers written in somewhere just you can call if your cell phone is not working. And I was able to solve my problems because I asked for help to the lady who was arranging the taxes in the airport. And she gave me her phone. And I called the shuttle. And it came back and picked me. So just make sure that you don't trip out and ask people for help. Hi, I'm Abhishek. I've just completed my first year in Mechanical New Department. I'm a graduate student looking to graduate in December. I think the thing which helped me most in getting familiar with this situation is contacting the Indian Student Association because I connected to those guys who are already from the same place in India. They helped me in getting accustomed to the culture and the changes which I'll experience after coming to Michigan, how to look for the housing, how to shop in Kroger in other shopping areas. I've been in other shopping areas because anywhere else, the shopping is very much different compared to other countries. So I mean, when I went to Kroger, I was overwhelmed by the choices of having different kind of yogurts. I mean, I can find 30 types of yogurts. In my country, it's only one or two kinds. And apart from these normal, non-academic things, like my friends who are from India, they helped me in understanding American culture and American way of working, like how to be friends with Americans while working and how to keep personal and professional life different from each other. So I think any international student should, I mean, any international student should look for the specific countries or respective countries' association because in Michigan, they have a lot of diversity in terms of international students and they have their own student association. So I suggest you should go look for these websites. Come on, I'm going to get back to that in a moment. Oh, I was going to just add quickly. That's a great point in connecting with specific students' organizations. But there are internationalists coming from the countries. You don't have a formal student's organization, which is okay. But maybe you connect with your specific department and sometimes they have either US students or international students there and then they can help you give more resources. And she was talking about her luggage was lost at the airport. As everybody's packing right now, keep in mind, don't pack your immigration document in your suitcase and making sure you have it with your carry on, your passport, your immigration document, your housing contract. You know where to go from the airport in case something unexpected happens. Thank you. And actually housing is something to talk a little bit more about. We talked a little bit earlier about how sometimes a lease starts at September one, but you write before that date. Does anyone want to comment on how to manage that sort of transition? I can add something. So something that I looked for and I've moved a couple of times here is sub leases. And that's when you're taking over someone's lease. So if you look on specific websites like the Chinese student website, mailing list is really good if you can translate it. Using Google translate or something. Or even Craigslist and there are people who are living at leaving Ann Arbor. So you can take over their lease and that can help if you have a regular time. Can I quickly add to that? A good resource on campus to understand what sub lets are and to understand your rights and responsibilities. U of M has an off-campus housing site and it has all kinds of forms and information about tenants' rights, laws, and information about renters and insurance, which is usually a pretty good idea to consider to protect your belongings. Anything else on housing that you can think about as students make the transition? I'd like to add something else. That is, maybe consider most of the apartments are not furnished, a lot of the apartments are not furnished. That's not something that's coming from the average and expecting, having to purchase furniture again. So just keep that in mind and then there are other resources like yard sales, which are pretty common here in the US in which people who do not have any use for a particular furniture, they will sell it at a lower rate than compared to maybe stores and you can get good quality stuff that way. You have to be careful, but that's it. Yeah, I have something to add. Like just for my experience, just try to find your roommate early or you will just be panicked the last minute. But even if you don't find a roommate in your own country, it's fine. So I think the UM has a site providing a platform. You can type in your information, what kind of roommate you want and they will try to match you with or provide you a long list of the other kind of similar person who are looking for a roommate, then you can try to connect with each other and have a meeting sometime during the US. So then you can meet. So then try to find a roommate. I have a few friends that just find their roommate on the platform. Like they are international students, but I think they found some local student here. Good, you agree? I actually used that website to find my first roommate here. And it worked pretty well and actually she was a senior student and she actually made my transition to an artwork more shorter. Good. One thing that I wanna add, University Housing typically offers early arrival housing, but I think that information is not gonna become available normally in late July. I keep checking their website every day, so I know it's not available yet. What they does is for students arrive in early August, they typically provide early arrival housing on campus before you move into your either resident hall or moving into your own apartment. But space is very limited, so that can be a challenge. We don't have the information for this year yet, so stay tuned. I have a question that came in. The student wanted to know about what other places you might be able to find furniture to finish your apartment at home. Secondhand stores are also a good bet, but there are other stores like IKEA, Walmart, just the regular general stores. Salvation Army is another secondhand thrift store, that's what they're called, and sometimes when we come from India, we have a tendency not to go for those. Do you think the secondhand is bad or broken furniture or something? That's not usually the case. They take good care of the stuff that they're selling. And also yard sales, like I said, so that's my experience, my experience, yeah. I also found like Craigslist is also a good place to start with. And also, if you already find your apartments just circle around, usually some people they will have a yard sale, which means they will sell their extra or the furnishment they don't want and put in the yard, and maybe you can just walk there and say what about this, like $5 or something. And they usually they were just offering a great deal for you. There is one University of Michigan's property disposition center actually. They usually sell stuff at very cheap prices. You can get a table for $5, which costs around $50 in IKEA or whatever. It's an official University of Michigan reseal center. So you can expect a very good stuff. I personally bought a file cabinet from them too. So it's a great resources. The other thing I recall, last year one of the new international's arrived. She went on to Craigslist to buy furniture. It happens, this person is putting a lot of things on Craigslist and the person even delivered everything to her apartment. Without a car at the beginning can be a challenge. Sometimes things just work out. You just have to look for it and ask. I don't have transportation. Would you do me a favor? Send everything. So that's a great point. So I don't have a car. And so sometimes what I do is I order things online and then one bunch of places that are even Amazon, if you buy things with a certain amount of money, like $50, they're very free. So that's a concern then. So I know people, especially students, we try to save money as much as we can, but I just want to say for the mattress, I don't use the second hand one because you don't know if they get bad bags. That will be really, really trouble. So try to buy a new mattress. That's for your health. Yeah, great advice. And we'll, from there, I like the transition to thinking about, you've talked about sort of getting here with the plane and making the transition into your apartment. What about meeting people? You started to talk about some of the cultural organizations. What are ways that you connected to people on campus? Either through student groups or other sources? I think before I came here, I tried to just send emails to those seniors. I think they are also coming from my own country. And I think that's the kind of first step because they already went through the whole processes, like two or three years ago, they still remember everything. Then when I came here, I think the first places I went is the department office. They get all those resources for registering classes, how to join a group and find a rotation, and how to deal with also anything academic. Okay, so I think that's also a good way to connect with other people. And I think once you join a lab or whatever, then you can try to connect with the lab mates and talk as much as you can because they know everything about the lab. The orientation program when you're meeting other people coming to the same program as you, that helps in your really young buddies for life. Yeah, that helps a lot. And I find America to be a very friendly place. So coming from a really big city, come from Bombay and Calcutta, we don't really walk on the streets or like smile at people. But here it's very common for people to smile and even ask how you're doing. Not that they always want a really infested in hearing, how you're doing actually. But you can actually make friends with your neighbors or people like that. I used to live in a community housing and I was very good friends with my Vietnamese neighbors and I got to eat a lot of great food. So yeah, and get invited to all their festivals and Indian festivals, so it's really good way of connecting with people from all over the world. Yeah. I feel like when I arrive at International Center has many workshops and I attend as many as I can. So I think that will be helpful for you to be both in the environment and meeting more people. And also after that my school has had orientation for international students and also for all of us. So that true orientation is very helpful. Well, maybe if I can add, using that moment as a perfect segue, we both mentioned about orientation. There are many orientations going on on campus so it can be confusing. Iraq has its own orientation on Friday the 29th. International Center every year offers three-week long orientation. This year it will start from Monday, August 11th and last until Friday, August 29th. So we do three weeks and we do workshops and it's repeated genre speaking for the most part is once a week. So if you happen to be here the second week of orientation, you still can attend many, many workshops. In addition to workshops, we have social events. So idea of doing workshops and social events is really essentially on what you touch on. You will be connected with other international students coming from all over the world and maybe you are in the same school or major in the same discipline studies or that you connect with your department orientation as well. And this is really essentially, we think it's critical for new international students when you first arrive on campus, you're really new to the environment and you don't know many people yet. So we're trying to do this, bring people together so you have a strong support network from the very beginning. Everybody is going through, probably I shouldn't say everybody, but most people is going through the same adjustment phases. Everybody adjust at different level depending on your prior experience. But I think having everybody together going through that and really enjoy the moment, you gain a lot of information from going to orientation workshops, from making friends with Americans, how to communicate with your academic advisor, culture difference in the classroom, shopping. We just don't talk about only the serious business topic. We have fun workshops as well. So I would encourage everybody take advantage. We do have the schedule tentative on the website already, but by late July, everything should be finalized, including the workshop presentation, handouts and everything. So I hope everybody will take advantage of that. We should take this opportunity to plug in the RECOM, new student orientation as well. Thanks for mentioning that. We are gonna be, it's gonna be held in the morning of August 29th. And we're gonna have a big resource fair, which means that we're gonna have different representatives from organizations all across campus. Parking, housing, et cetera, so that you can get familiar all in one fell swoop. So I hope that the new students can join us for that activity. So actually you've brought up economics. Let's talk a little bit about registering for courses. Where did you find the most helpful information about the process for registering? Who did you talk to? Where did you go? I'd like to take that question. So I can take that. Thanks. As I mentioned, I think my school did very well on helping international students. We had an orientation prior to international students orientation prior to our own orientation. So they talked to us all the information we need, like example registering the courses. Who should we talk to? And we met that person in that orientation. And after that, every person they sent us emails, like here's the link to register the course. If you have any questions, you can ask me. So I think that's helpful. Usually, for example, in my school, it's in the office of academics. So people's office are there and you can always walk in to ask questions. Thank you. Any different experiences? Even in mechanical department, there's some academic services offices which deals with all the academic related issues of the students. So like in my department, they email me some kind of information for how to register for the courses, involving the access and what are the different terms used by registering like backpacks and waiting and other things. So I mean, you should ask for a department just emailed in the academic service office. And they should be, I mean, they are generally very prompt in replying all these specific emails and which are important emails. So I think you can get the information from there. So the different departments have different sorts of timing and things that you'll want to find out about ahead of time. So I find like the department website is usually helpful because for example, I think in our department chemistry, we summarize all the rules about registering, like how do you, how many points you need to get and like how do you keep a good standing? Like all those rules, they summarize in a student handbook and they upload it online so you can have look. I mean, even for those seniors, they cannot be like known everything. So it's the bad thing is just go and check the rules in the student handbook. And also, I think in the Rackham School website, they have the general rules for all PhDs and masters, those things they need to stick to. Like for example, I read like a special rule, like if you have a sick leave, the maximum year is like one year thing. You can stop everything and resume at one year. But you need to like apply to some person, I think and fill out the form. So that's like really official places we can stand. Actually I can add something about the course registration. Some departments, you cannot register in advance. You have to come here, attend to the departmental orientation, get the consent from the advisor and then you can register. So if you can, if somebody can't register, they should not be afraid of being late. So some departments must work like that, so be aware of that. What are the... Oh, I was gonna add one more thing is related to class registration, as international students, you probably are aware of or heard about, there is a minimum requirement, you have to register in order to comply with the US immigration regulations. What we normally suggest to new international students for the first semester or even the first academic year, take the basic requirement in the foundation courses, talk with your department and what are some of the courses should be considered foundation, the basic course that you wanna take and don't overload yourself in the sense and I know everybody's trying to finish everything ahead of the schedule and if you tuition, everything is paid by all of you family and you don't have any financial support from school. You're even more anxious to finish everything in a short period of time, but that can add a lot of stress to yourself. So the first semester, take the minimum requirement and then you go from there, once you adjust to the environment and everything and then you can pick up a course load in the near future. Did we get a seat? No, I think that's, I agree. Yeah, good. So you got support. What about other things in the academic culture in Michigan that you think are good to know ahead of time and the things that were different for you that you thought this would help someone transition as a new student? So a lot of professors will upload the materials on a web page or a website which is dedicated to them. That's not something I had in India and in the beginning it was a bit challenging to find out, oh, this is where I have to upload my homework assignment or download these, but once you get a hang of it, it's really nice, but yeah. Yeah, that reminds me. Yeah, we use this website called C2S which is like all the professors uploaded their slides. Sometimes we upload our homework to the website so people can grade them. So I think that's a website you need. Well, I kind of bookmarked in my browser because I use it every day. And also another website which is closely related is called the Wolverine Access. You register your classes, you see your paycheck, you get like a lot of information there. I found that really useful. Yeah, please. I have like, in India there are no office hours kind of thing which is very common in US. So because office hours is basically a time for the professor to interact with the students and he can answer any question related to the course material. And besides the professor, the grader or teaching assistant, which is called TA or GS, a graduate student instructor, also helps in understanding the materials. So like for a typical class, generally the office arranges from one or two in a week. So a student can go there and ask for the doubts in the course material or the homework assignments and other related stuff. So generally people, like generally the professor and TA is available at that time they can really help the students. Nobody's mentioned Michigan time. I was waiting to hear that. Does anyone want to take the Michigan time? What that means? Yeah, go ahead. So Michigan time, 10 a.m. is actually 10, 10 a.m. So it's 10 minutes after the student time that's when it starts. And I guess it helps if you have a class because the University of Michigan is pretty huge and there are different campuses. So if you want to get from one campus to another, it might take you that much time. So they give that 10 minute grace period for you to be there on time for your class to start. And it bleeds into everything else we do at Michigan too. I think that's different for people from the United States or other. It's unusual. Can I take a quick moment to do a housekeeping thing? Can you scoot in just a little bit so that people can see, scoot your chairs in a little bit closer to the table. And I can't see them too well, so please zoom in a little bit. I'm looking at us on the screen, so I just want to make sure they can see your lovely faces. That's good. One of the things, I know some people brought their Michigan cards. Anyone want to talk about that aspect of Michigan? Nam card? Oh, Nam card. And do you all have them? Do you have your name card? Yeah. I've got mine. Oh, the color of this card is called Maze. So it's a very special yellow, which kind of represented Michigan. And another color I think represented Michigan is blue. So people say Maze and blue, right? Yeah. Yes, those are colors. What can you do with your M card? How do you use it? Oh, so, okay, I can start with that. So this Michigan card, this M card, okay. It kind of I'd be identification card for you in the Michigan. You can use it to get library books. You can use them to access your building at the locking time. So usually it's like at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. And also it's, yeah, you can use it to access all the buses, the city bus. Yeah, it's free. Yeah. So it's a really great privilege. So always keep in mind, just keep this card. The first time you come here, just get the card. I think it's in the student activities building. There is office there. You can get them free for the first time. Yes, and I want to jump in at this time. I know a lot of students are wondering, what am I going to get my M card? Because it is a very vital piece of time here at Michigan. So here's the word, the official word. New students will obtain their first M card during their student orientation. And there are different orientations that are going to be taking place over the summer. So you should be getting special information about that via email. So don't worry. And if you need to get your M card when you're here, it's before you arrive. There are things called issuing stations, like what you were saying. So don't worry. We'll get information out to you. And there are different points of entry where you can get your card. So you can start writing those buses for free. And did no one mention the student discount part? Does anyone use their M card for a student discount? Actually, I just discovered that last week. Oh, just in time. Yeah, just in time. So they have discounts for the restaurants and some bookshops. So it's very useful to know about which discounts are applied. And they are all on the web page. Yeah, and discounts for movies. I just went to see a movie. And you always get a student discount if you have a card. Yeah, not only movies, but also concerts. I mean, like, they're significant discounts. Like the Michigan Musical School concerts or the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra concerts. They always have student discounts. You can also use your M card making photo copies. You swipe the card on the device and making copies. Please. So for the M card, not only can you write the city buses for free, but there's also a Detroit connector, which I didn't know, but that's actually free bus from the University of Michigan to Detroit. And you can take up to, I think, two guests or four guests. So you can take your parents along to Detroit for free. Thanks to this card. So yeah. Have you done that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We went to the DIA, the Detroit Institute, and then we'll go to Eastern Market sometime this weekend. You can use one of Eastern Marketed? Pardon me? You can use one of Eastern Marketed? Yeah, it is actually the largest open farmers market here in the US. And we're going there for vegetables and different flowering plants. Yeah, is there anything else going on in Eastern Marketed? And you then sort of... That's a great restaurant. I grew up in Detroit, so I'm so excited to hear that you've been to Eastern Marketed. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah. There's a lot of things in Detroit you can do. Those are two highlights of Detroit Institute of Arts in Eastern Marketed. One more thing you can do with your M card is to check in into any events, any ongoing events in the campus. So you just go there, swipe this card, and then all the relevant information related to that event will be emailed to you all the points after the events, like all the important points and all the presentations which the presenter is going to be presenting in the event will be emailed to you. So it's a pretty good resource to get all the information which you cannot note down every single point. In fact, you can get the lecture videos as well, like they generally record the guest lecture videos of the events and you can get access for this if you swipe your M card in the event. So it's awesome. Yeah, it's nice. It's really nice. You started sort of moving into some of the cultural things about Michigan and Detroit and Ann Arbor. Share with us some of the things that you've experienced that you didn't expect or things that you had assumptions about and found they were completely fulfilled when you came to Michigan. That was an exciting question. Well, a lot of things. Okay, yeah, I feel like the cultural differences quite, quite, yeah, at the beginning is quite shocking, I will say, but yeah, I just get adjustment to that. Like one thing, like American culture is kind of very encouraging. So I think, yeah, at the very beginning, like one time I get a project paper. So I after a minute, I asked the supervisor, oh, how good am I doing? He said, yeah, good. Yeah, I thought, yeah, I'm doing good. But once the result turned out, I see, wow, crap, it's really bad. Then, okay, later, I gradually like learned that, like good means, well, you're doing really bad. You really need to work hard to improve on that and like very good means, yeah, you're doing okay. And unless like people say, oh, you're genius, you write that paper, I can't believe it, that means, well, you're really good. Did other people experience that sort of perception? I think it's very common, no matter how you do, it's always ended with good job. I don't know how seriously to take that comment anymore. But it's a good way not to be very harsh or just have something good to say. If your content wasn't good, you usually get comments on, that's a nice font you used or nice presentation style. So it's a positive environment, but maybe don't read a lot. Yeah, sometimes you just get the wrong information out of that. One of the sort of things that people experience that were things about maybe the American culture that you didn't expect. One thing I experienced is like sales checkup, and sales service constant. This is very prevalent in American stores. Like whenever you go to shopping, your sales service, you are choosing your stuff from a lot of variety of things. Like you are using sales checkups, you are not depending on the cash counters and you are not required to stand in the queue. Whenever you go to movie, you can just swipe your card and get everything. Like you can have everything without anyone. I mean, you are basically sales, you are basically independent from the service of other guys. So it really helps in getting you independent from every aspect in shopping or wherever you go, basically. So it's a nice experience for me. I didn't realize that that's an uncommon experience. Actually, one thing that I find interesting about the American culture is the personal space thing. So in my country, we usually kiss when we are saying hi and hug, and here, I mean, you can smile to the strangers, but you usually don't hug to people, you know? So you have to be respectful to their personal space. So you have to be respectful to their personal space. So that's something that I find interesting about. Do you have an example of something that? Yeah, actually, I was in a bus one time and I was gonna ask something to a guy. He was sitting in front of me, so I just touched his shoulder and he just turned and he asked, what are you doing? No, do not do that. I can add something to that, and that is it's kind of the academic culture, but also social culture. In India, whenever someone is saying something and you understand what they're saying or where they're going with that thought, you kind of interrupt and you say, oh yeah, yeah, this is what you mean, but that's not really looked at with, well, that's not very acceptable here in the US. For example, we had a professor who was really good, but whenever the student would ask him a question, he was an Indian professor, and whenever the student would ask him a question and halfway through the question, you understand what they're asking for you, and he would jump in with the answer. And at least some of my American colleagues got really, really angry at that behavior just because they thought that he wasn't letting them complete the whole thought. So it's very culturally acceptable in India or when someone is talking or we having a conversation and you say something and I understand, I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's what that's really mean. Don't do that here. Yeah, that's very much. Yeah, yeah, so that's from Tapan here at least. I just thought of something that, because I've been here and I do not have a car and I, for my experience, I feel like it's really difficult to go out, to go somewhere if you do not have a car, especially during weekends. So the bus stops, the bus ends very early in the afternoon. So with the shopping mall like open until late, it's really difficult to go out. Well, adding on that, it's really something that you want to consider with the limited transportation. And sometimes once you know somebody has transportation, all first aid, that's very nice of you offering me, share the ride and then share, contribute some money for the gasoline. So that person feel like it's like you're always taking advantage and never offering anything, so you keep that in mind as well. The other thing, excuse me, I was gonna add is really, a part of this culture adjustment for some international students, I don't want to generalize everybody. Some eye contact might be very uncomfortable either in a social setting or maybe even during the job interview, a conversation with your professor and et cetera, et cetera. So in the U.S. culture and making intense eye contact is crucial. You're really showing that you are listening attentively, responding, not looking around and people are thinking you're really rude and then do you have somewhere you have to be, you don't want to pay attention to me. So I know it takes time to get used to, but it's very crucial, so we need to keep that in mind. We've done workshops here at RACM on professional communication and social settings and Kay and I've talked about the aggressively friendly nature of Americans, so that seems to resonate with people. I have a question that came in. Yes. What has it been like interacting with your professors here and has that been different from how it is in your home country? Yeah, I feel like it's very different. For example, in my undergrad, my professor will ask us to meet him, for example, once a month and some certain time, but I feel like here, you should be, you should take advantage of the professor and you should point with your professor or otherwise your professor will not request to meet you. So I'd like to hear more about what might be the protocol for connecting with your professor. Is that different for you here in the United States? Yeah, you can use, you can email the professor and set up an appointment with him. Generally, the professor's given appointment in a very short period also. It depends on the professor and the project. So whenever you, if you can ask a question which can be directly answered on the email, they generally answer it. If the thing that it needs to be explained personally or it cannot be explained on the email, they generally give you some time for half an hour or whatever, depending on the question. And you can go there and meet with them during this appointment. So, but make sure that you arrive on time and you're not late because generally, professors do not follow like Michigan time for their appointment. Yeah, that's true. For the classes and other events. But with professors, you have to do the shopping. And also making sure you do your homework before your appointment. So you have a list of questions prepared. During orientation, we offer workshops how to communicate with the academic advisor. We have one professional staff, class two, current international students share their experience, really how to take advantage of professor's office hours and how to maintain that contact because those professors can be very crucial for your future study here. So you want to start from having a good relationship, understanding what are some of the neutral expectations, is email working better or does a professor prefer to meet with you once awake and how often should you meet with the person? So making sure you come and listen to the international peer advisor talk about their first hand experience. Yeah, I totally agree with Kate. And I think like for the first time you meet some professor, it's always good to send an email first, set up a time. Then like on the first meeting, then you can try to ask something like what kinds of way do you prefer? Should I just email all the time or should I just knock on the door or whatever? Because I think every professor is quite unique. For example, like for my advisor, he always prefers, he said, you get any question? Just knock on my door and just pushing and we can just have a few words if the question is really quick. And some professors say, I don't have time, always email me. Do not let me call me or just knock on my door. Do not do that. So just like respect their schedule, they are really busy. So just like set up this meeting and ask for the way they prefer. Jelle, did you have any experiences with the email interaction being different in any way? I think it's quite, I mean, the first time you try to be as normal as possible. That's a good rule. I mean, you don't know about that. But for example, I get quite familiar with my supervisor. Usually it can be a little bit less formal. For example, I can call my first name of my boss and yeah, he's totally fine with that. It's kind of a good way to interact. And he will joke, like my boss is American. He jokes all the time. Anytime even I talk with my fellow students, he will just jumping and joking us. So yeah, that's another, like at the very beginning I'm not comfortable with. Like Americans is really like joking all the time. Yeah, it means humor a lot. At times it don't seem appropriate. But then I found like that people really value like humor. So yeah, I'm trying to learn that. Is there anything else anyone's experienced with the connecting with the faculty that comes up to you? That was a surprise as you entered? I guess some of the points have been touched on but in my experience, I found the professors here were very friendly and approachable. And you can usually, I mean it's expected that you ask questions if you don't understand. That's definitely there. Sometimes in India we don't always question authority. But here they aren't very cotton-based. Here the professors are gonna consider you an equal and that's how you have to behave. So that's something that's a little different and then good points. Yeah, I mean before I came to the US in China I was always afraid of like asking silly questions but then I come here really like every professor said there is really no silly question. Every question has its own points or at least that means you don't get it. So you can ask it maybe other people also don't get it. They just didn't ask. So it's always good to ask questions. So you talked a little bit about connecting with seniors at Michigan to help you in your transition. Have any of you connected with students in your program that might have been more advanced students and use that as a resource? Yeah, I feel like my school did very well on that. We have student ambassador. It's basically each new incoming student will be assigned a clear grad student and they will send you an email and you can ask him or her any questions you have. Yeah. Good. Did you find that helpful? Did you use it? Yeah, yeah, that's very helpful. You can ask the life here and also as per speed questions you have in your program. Okay, yeah. My department also did a really good job because they arranged a retreat just after we came here. Just we came here and it was mandatory for the first year students. And if there's a retreat and if it's not mandatory for the first year students, I would strongly advise to go because you can meet all the people in your department there and it's great to make your connections. It's great to decide which courses to take, which labs to go. So it's really crucial for your adjustment to here, I would say. Good. Did you find the retreat? Where did you find particularly helpful about the retreat, anything? So there was posters from all the labs and in my department you do rotations because when you come here, so I talk to people, I learned what they are working on now because now when you look at the websites, there's usually the papers from the previous work because the current work is not usually published so you don't know about the current work. So I learned about the current work more. I met even some professors and the senior students and yeah, they helped me a lot. So it was economic and social. Yeah, it was economic and social. Excellent. Okay, so it's my experience that you can just knock on like, if you're interested in a certain lab or a certain professor, you can just knock on the door of their lab. Okay, there are always a lot of graduate students there and you can just directly talk with them. I think that's kind of really normal in those science departments. You can just talk with them and ask them, what do you think about this lab and how do you feel about the graduate school, everything. They are always, always very friendly in answering these questions and I think our departments also encourage us to do that. But well, I'm not really sure about those departments that do not rely on the lab thing, like the business school. So yeah, but then I come up with like, I know that if you get a UMish account, you can always log in. I think we have an aluminum graduate student directory. So you can all, if you know the name of the one you want to connect, you can always log in there, search their email, then you can just send an email and try to connect with them. You started to touch on, it's okay to ask people questions about the lab and what people think. What are other things that you had to learn we're okay to talk about that might have been different than you expected from your own cultural norms? Maybe even from the perspective of your shock that Americans talk about things that you wouldn't expect them to talk about. And the things that were new to you? Something that was new to me was maybe professors taking some interest in me or asking me. So I used to, my first professor that I had, I used to work these crazy hours and not each lunch or something. And it was very surprising to me that she would come out to me and say, Vishal, did you eat? And then she would get me food sometimes. And that was really, it just never happened to me. So that was definitely something different. Taking personal care for you. Yeah, yeah. That's nice. I will force the question, please. Well, I wonder if anyone's professor has invited the department or program over to their home for a meal. That's something that happens from time to time. That's kind of an interesting setting where students have to come into the professor's home. That happens at anyone? Not me. I can march there. Yeah. My friend, she took a course and after, at the end of the course, the professor invites all the students in the course to his house for a mohawk talk. I don't know. Okay, so it's just one time for me. Like the first supervisor I rotated with, he just get his tenure track. He just get his tenure this year. So he's really happy. He just invited all the lab members and even former lab members to his house for the, I think it's Christmas. Yeah, so that's pretty good. What about other things that have assisted you here in Ann Arbor? We talked about the International Center, which is certainly a huge resource for international students in Rackham Graduate School. What, in cultural groups, what other sort of student groups or organizations on campus have been really important for you, particularly in that transition time. But even as you've sort of progressed. There are many organizations listed on me's page. So you can connect with them to the organization that share your interests. There's some kind of music, like salsa, or some kind of squirrel feeding group. Any other group. So there are many other groups. It's good for everything to stop. So you can connect to different kind of people who share your interests and you can interact with them. They have their monthly meetings or full 90 meetings. So it's pretty good to interact with other guys who have their, who have your, who have the similar interests as yours. You spent a lot of May's pages. Yeah, so I mean, like May's pages are basically university of, like there are many student organizations around more than 500, I guess. So they are listed on the May's pages. May's pages is a University of Michigan official group. They list all the official groups associated with the University of Michigan. And you can search using keywords. They have their kind of keywords, categories, alphabetically. You can search with them connect with those student organizations. It can be social, academic, religious, you're looking for any particular interest. And also the good part about May's page, if you don't find an organization that meet your personal interests, you can start your own. You can start your own. That's just thinking. The campus of the involvement, a center for campus involvement center is there to support you and can work with you. And also a center for campus involvement also offers a lot of program on campus for students. So it's a great opportunity to get involved and participate in the program. And another chance to meet with American students or other students from different countries as well. In fact, my area is professional development. A group that was started by international students is the Michigan Graduate Consulting Club. There was a student who said, I really want to get into consulting in the undergraduate clubs and serving my needs. And he initiated that and it's become a really active club. So a great example of a contribution from international students at Michigan, but also something you can do. And I bet there have been a personal group student. Oh, for sure. So my area is student development. And so we often partner with Rackham Student Government, which he'll probably hear more from for the new students. We offer social events for anyone. So you can meet people from all across the university, which is great. We also at Rackham have activities for certain groups of students. So students who are parents or LGBTQ students. So there's lots of opportunities in your department at Rackham, your school college level. There's lots of ways to get involved. And actually I want to talk about Rackham just a little bit, because we haven't done that much. You know, your graduate students are Rackham students also. Many of you will be out there. And so there are things that Rackham does. I lead out professional development, which means there are workshops on job search, career development, learning some core competencies like leadership. So there's a lot we do that way. Have you and Natalie's out student development, we've talked about some of those things also. I don't know if there's anything in particular in one that covered a number of them. So I want to ask you guys, how you've interacted with Rackham and what sort of things you've taken advantage of through Rackham? For me, I received Rackham newsletter and they post their workshops. And I see most help your friend jobs. And also there are some social events that I took advantage of. And there were... What kind of social events can I ask? I wouldn't choose skiing and bowling. Yeah, bowling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're doing it again, so look out for it. And yeah, I like the social events and also the workshop that help you find a job. And there were also the music festivals events and also I remember there were academic events like the lectures. Yeah, so I think you can find something you want and take advantage of that. I'm very glad you mentioned the email newsletter that goes to students from Rackham because it does include a lot of information, including fellowship, so everyone likes money. So it's a good place to look for that information. You're gonna be hearing from a lot of different sources as a student. Your department's probably gonna be sending you tons and tons of email. Your instinct might be delete. But as much as you can help it, try to at least skim those messages because there's usually some great information that you can get and after you've given it a quick skim, then you can delete it. But we just wanna make sure that students are hearing about the things that are happening. And you might find through those communications from your departments that there are some grad student organizations that are just your department-specific that you might not find on May's Pages because they're not a registered student organization. So if you don't find something on May's Pages, you might be able to find something in your particular program. So keep an eye out for that. Ask around. Anything else? I know that International Center, too, and Rackham does a lot of workshops together also. So we're gonna go closer. Yeah, we do. It has been truly a great partnership with Rackham. We do a lot of workshops to support international students in the senses because the US immigration regulation can be really confusing and complicated. It's not always black and white situation. So we do workshops all year round from the employment overview. So you have a sense where you can work and what are the limitations from the US immigration perspective. We also work sometimes with other offices, career center funding and internship. We'll do that once a year in January. And we also work with a couple of immigration attorneys. This is, I know, it's a long term, and you're all new, but just to, you know, you know what's being offered by International Center. In addition to those jobs, employment-related workshops, we also work on other things to support international students from the social culture aspect. So we will send that email to all international students. That's another office. You will see emails from International Center. So again, like Natalie and Paula says, don't keep the delete button until you take a look. Take a look and read it because the email from International Center can be tied to a specific immigration situation. Then we do reminder because you may need a travel signature or your immigration document is about to expire. So remind all international students. So make sure you don't keep that delete button until you read everything. Brackham collaborates with a lot of organizations like the Clear Center, International Center. We try to help coordinate some of the things that you'll learn about on campus. One of the other things that you brought up was the Fall Festival. The Fall Festival, see that right there? Yeah, the Fall Festival. So we got all the student organization in the MACE page. They also do have a real booth. So in days called up, usually in September, it's the Fall Festival. It's held in the Diak, which is the center of the central campus. So every organization will have a booth. So you can just go around and just sign in anything that you're interested in. Get a lot of free things to giveaways. There's also a version of the Festival on that North Campus, which is the North Fest. So they're both held in the second week of September. One of the things we haven't talked about is the sort of campus, I mean, the physical campus. Wouldn't it be willing to talk about their experiences with that, what you thought when you first got here, what people might look forward to? So what I know is, I think besides, except for engineering departments, usually they are in the North Campers. The other department usually is located in the central campus. But if you need to sometimes take a classes in North Campers, we have the University of Michigan bus system. It's called Blue Bus. You can always take the bus and get to the North Campers. It usually takes like 15 minutes. So it is not walkable. Yeah, don't try to do that. Yeah, there's central, north, sometimes you'll learn med campus. Not only on the south campus. You can walk between the medical campus. Right, central campus, yes, yes. Well, North Campers has great resources in addition to College of Engineering. You have music, you have architecture. And then the University housing, the Northwood community, I should say, family housing are located on North Campers. And they also have the NCRB is located up there. And a lot of other off-campus housing located on North Campers. So Kate, you just used an acronym for NCRB. Yes, North Campers Recreation Center. Recreation Building. Yes, yes. Yeah, you would see a lot of acronyms and people just say, oh, go to SAV and NCRB, CCRBO, that's one thing to be mindful. I know when I first joined Michigan back in 98, there wasn't any iPhone. At least I didn't have iPhone in that age. And I also have a hard copy of the campus map with me during lunch break. And I would take the map out and walk and find one new building that I don't know yet. Just to walk around. So every day I thought, oh, this is where Radcom is located. So you know the next time we have a meeting, you know exactly where you're going. And now everybody have iPhone and all kinds of device. So that's a great way to sort of think about it. Is there one piece of advice you would give for someone even if you didn't do it? You think this would be a good idea to acclimate yourself to the campus? Yeah, I think it is good to take map from the International Center during orientation because sometimes the map, it is not available on Google, especially the campus map. And they have the building's name and the street so you can take a map and at least walk around to see some buildings. And of course there are many events happening on campus, but it is not always in your department, it's always around the campus. And next time when you want to attend that event, but it may find it difficult to find the building and the room. So it's always good before your term begins, walk around the campus, especially the central campus. There are many buildings. Can I add on that, just in terms of the getting the campus map, the two places that you want to go will be the campus information center. One is actually located in the Michigan Union on the first floor. There's another one in the Pierpont Commons. Those are the places you can get campus map, city map, bus schedule, even driver's license menu, the center of a campus information in the union. They have those resources available. Actually the one from International Center that she was referring to is black and white. It's not as nice as the one from campus information center. We just make copies and sometimes it's really hard to read. So I would encourage you to go to the campus information center to get a beautiful map. Kate, can I just ask you to explain what the Michigan Union and Pierpont Commons are in general? Sure, yeah. Michigan Union is, oh, you've combined people to say, oh, go to the union. They are referring to one of the, I would say landmarks on central campus in the Michigan flag flying there right across from the University of Michigan Art Museum. So the building essentially has offices but also has a lot of facilities and rooms for activities and students' goal even people in the community will go as well. So one of the offices, actually a couple of offices I mentioned located in the building center for campus involvement that I mentioned earlier, campus information center is there. Counseling psychological services is on the third floor. There are many, many, many offices in that building. And the Pierpont Commons, you can think the concept will be the Michigan Union on North Campus, if I may. Even though it's not called Michigan Union on North Campus. It's another facility, major one, hosts a lot of facilities and shops and restaurants and rooms for activities. Here's something that I was going to go to and now I just lost it about getting, oh, getting around campus. So are there other places that you think are really key spots on campus that students should know about before they get here? Rackham Building, we say Rackham and we actually mean the school, the university, the graduate school but we also mean a building, actually a stunning building that we're sitting in right now that is available to you to study in and we have lots of events here. What else on campus would you recommend or, well, you should definitely know about this building. The one thing which is most prominent in the North Campus is like Duda Star. It's a library of art, architecture and engineering. It's A-A-E-L, art, architecture and engineering library. It has a largest, like it has one of the largest collection of the books in the U.S. And it has some cane computers. Cane is basically College of Engineering Network which have all the engineering software available for the access and they have around more than 500 computers there. So you can access all the licensed software which are otherwise very expensive for the person use. Generally, people use that space to have some group meetings for the project works. They have some cafes, also mutuals cafes. So I mean, that's a very good collaboration space for the project meetings and other stuff. And they have some study rooms as well in which you can go there and study alone. It's a great resource. Are the resources that people have found really essential? I think in Central Campus, and the two libraries, the grads library and the Shapiro and the grads library, they are very helpful. And also actually, there is a Park Science Library on the third floor of the grad library, Shapiro library. So it is not just a good place to study, but also there are some displays, exhibits that happen there, especially there are events in the grad library, the first floor of the gallery. There are some displays, so that will be helpful if you want to take a break from your course. That's a good suggestion. You both mentioned library, if I may, just added on journal on occasion. We already set up tours for Duderstadt and Central Campus as well. You will discover as new international since there's so many libraries on campus. And it's not just for a place to study and you find resources, how to utilize the library to help your academic study here. So we have many, many tours scheduled for North Campus as well as Central Campus. So it will be posted on the website. Yeah, I can add, there is a media room in the grad library. Some of my classmates, they did not know that. I told them that we can rent for videos. Oh yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah, that's wonderful and the resources are huge. Yeah, it's one of the largest video collections in the United States. We like to save a lot of Michigan. One of the biggest, the best. We are the best. Actually, I'm not a North Campus person, but some friends told me that the dude, they called the Duderstadt, has a great video game collection and you can even play Super Mario with the 90s game console. How did we miss that? That's a good one. Can I ask about a few more? Can we back to you? Oh, I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that in case you're spending a long hours in the lab or something and you need food, there's also a cafeteria which is open 24-7, at least for the medical school. The medical school cafeteria is something I really appreciate. Oh yeah, that's awesome. Good suggestion. I was just going to ask about what other acronyms that you might hear a lot when you're a new student and some of them are funny, like the dude, the Duderstadt Center. So what are the acronyms that should students be listening out for? Another funny is ugly on the grid. It's still called the ugly, even when they rename it. Another thing I heard is big house. So like Michigan people are crazy about football games. So the big house is one of the biggest football stadium in the United States. And people love our Michigan football team. So you are usually a big fan. So they were just crowded the whole stadium during the game day. Football Saturdays, I don't know if anyone hears something there. SAV I think is used quite a lot. That's where International Center is located. That's where the MPART office is located and also Housing Information Center and Career Center and Office of Students, Employment Resolute, Financial, Students' Employment Office, and the Undergrad Relations Office. So there are lots of offices, ACB people to see. Go to ACB. Student activities building. Yes, that's right. Oh, another thing is the BTC. So it's a Blake Transit Center, which is all the buses start. So yeah. And walkable, very walkable from the central campus, like 10 minutes. And the Ann Arbor town and campus are very close to each other. They're back there intertwined, so you'll find that. We haven't talked much about sort of shifting back to things that are very particular to international students, things that might have helped you in speaking or any English when you arrived here. I thought it's important we cover that before we close out the call. Was anything particularly helpful for you or things that you thought you needed particular challenges with and how you resolved them? The accent sometimes is a problem. So I never thought I would have any problem here communicating. But you do take some time to get used to that since you're in there, they tend to get used to your accent. But what time that that goes away? Yeah, also, I think just culturally, please from some parts of India, you speak too fast. And I still do that. I go like a train. But slow down. That's something that helps. So at the very beginning, I just feel sometimes I don't catch like what other people are saying. Like I understand every word they are saying, but I just don't understand like they are referring to some program, referring to some movie they see. But I just don't get those cultural references. So my experience, I try to watch a few American program like on TV, like Saturday Night Live, those kind of communication things. So they get a lot of, I think, the culture of being there. So just try to listen to some of them and you can get kind of a feeling there. So just don't worry too much. Just need time to get adjusted to that. Has anyone used the English Language Institute at all? Oh, so I get a training. People are just, when I just come here. So we need to take the training. I think it's for like all the science departments, physics, chemistry, mathematics, statistics. So we take the training after the training. We have to pass English test. So it's kind of an oral English test. So you have to get a B above so you can teach. So that's like the requirement for a lot of PhD programs. So that training is kind of very helpful. And I think the ELI, the English Language Institute, they also provide a lot of courses during the fall term and the winter term. So you can take those classes to try to improve every aspect of your English. They provide writing, listening, speaking, all kinds of things. Yeah, one of my friends has joined this ELI group. It's English Language Institute group. So they have some circle, English speaking circle, in which there's one American student and four or five international students. They interact each other in a casual way for one hour during a week. So in that sense, American students can explain them how to ask questions and how to respond then, what should be the accent, what should be the speed, and other things. So I mean, it generally requires some kind of registration. And it's in very high demand. So I think they should have opened this registration system now. It should be available now. The conversation circle you're referring to is very popular among all international students. As soon as registration opens, it feels like instantly. So if you're unable to join that, I think the other opportunity will be really, maybe there are a lot of opportunities in the community. Sometimes you want to, they have conversation hour, or maybe people share a common interest, hiking, like outdoor adventures on campus or for trips. That's another opportunity. Not necessarily sitting around the table to improve our English interactions with people, share a common interest, another opportunity. International Center offers other opportunity, maybe a coffee hour we're doing right now for new international students, other things that we do. Even just talking about American holidays or culture or making friends, understanding the US election, that's another new concept for a lot of international students, even though you can't vote. But we generally, maybe every four years, we'll invite a professor from political science, talk about the two candidates, and what are something similar or different. And then we do a mock voting at the end of the presentation. It was fun. It's really eye-opening and fun interaction to see the information from the professor and students participating in workshops. So yeah, we will do those social events in collaborating with background as well in the future. I can say too, having been a university student that I have friends who are international students who said who we became friends by them asking me if I could be their conversation partner. So I think there are informal ways also to connect with conversation partners. I have a question that came in, which is a little bit more of a practical question, but were you able to find good food here? That's a good question. I would say good food is like standard here. So the food is, the restaurants are really good here if you are eating out, but for the grocery shopping, you will need a car usually, but if you eat out, there are a lot of restaurants from different cousins around the world, so it's really great. But one thing is that there is no good Turkish restaurant. So that's awful, yeah. There's an opportunity right there. Yeah. So I will say if you really need some comments, I think Yelp, it's a website, it's a good starting point, but I just personally feel it's kind of an American rating on all the restaurants. Some may say it's the best. I will say, yeah, it's just so, so good. So take it with a grain of salt. Yeah, so yeah, that's a place. Another place I found good to start is the M life. So that's kind of, that's a website which is full of local news. So some of them will give some comments on the local restaurant which is newly opened or yeah, I think they have some always like send someone there, taste the food and write those review articles. I will say. And another thing you can do is just ask your classmates or your lab mates, they always get the idea of where the best restaurant is. You can always try during the first year. I can ask something. I just found when I came here, I felt like I never, it's so small or tall cause I came from a relative large city in China. And I feel like this is the downtown definitely so short misty. Two blocks, right? Yeah. And the supermarket are all far away from the central area. So I feel like it's small but I just went back from my internship. That is really a town. And I found like the supermarkets, oh, if I want to go to Kruger after drive like 20 minutes, it's another city. Oh. Yeah. So I think for the restaurants, if you do not like cook, you want to try new stuff. There are many restaurants in Main Street that is very good and high quality. But it's kind of expensive. If you like to cook, there are many supermarkets here. And for the cheap ones, you may want to check Kruger. But if you want to get high quality foods like organic, I think the whole foods is really a good one because when I interned in Ohio, a small town, I checked, I had to drive one and a half hour for the whole foods. So I feel like another is so good place. We have two. Yeah. And there's also, excuse me, I live, for the last year, I live just near the farmers market. I think that's pretty good. So the price may not high, it depends. Some are of high quality, but they're really cheap. Which is the farmers markets and outdoor market year round. Especially in summer times, like in September, October, there are many fruits, vegetables, then fresh and good. There's about five blocks. Yeah. I'll add something to that. So if you're interested in cooking, there are also Indian grocery stores or even Chinese markets. But you can get your own spices available and fish, fresh fish also. So that is really good about Ann Arbor that you have all of these places available. And talking about the restaurants, I think it's very subjective. There are lots of different cultural or different countries, food that we can try out. But I guess just like Navee said that there aren't any good Turkish restaurants. Even for us, we feel like maybe the Indian restaurants, they don't serve the kind of food from your Portugal region. So that's very subjective. It's pretty good. Are the international markets, do you find them to be good, well-stocked? Oh, yeah, very well-stocked. I really like Rosalind Clistock. Yeah. Actually, the Mediterranean markets are a little bit far away. You have that when I was at Curtin. Yeah, so that doesn't work for me. Yeah. We're talking about, you know, Ann Arbor is a college town and things are not cheap. We all know that. And the nice thing about Ann Arbor is they do twice a year restaurant week. And there is one coming up next week. So International Center offers twice a year as well to celebrate Ann Arbor restaurant week. So we take students going to different restaurants. So next week we're going to a Thai restaurant and also it offers in January. So we do that twice a year. It's a great advantage for everybody. Tastes different food and at a discounted price. Sometimes a lot of them offer two for $15 for lunch, a dinner at a different price as well. So it's a great opportunity to try different food and then you will know whether you like it or not or if you want to come back. I want to take a moment to mention a resource that I found to be helpful and I'm from Michigan. But this is a lot of good stuff about Ann Arbor in particular and it's the Ann Arbor Observer. And they have a whole listing of restaurants by different type of food. So you might want to check that out. This is all contained within what they call a city guide. So it's everything you might want to know about Ann Arbor in general. So I'm going to check out. So we're running up to the top of the hour when we're going to wrap up. And I wanted to offer you an opportunity to show anything that you thought. Oh, I thought they'd bring this up or I thought we'd get to this topic or something that you think is important for students to hear before we close out. I can just one thing that I thought of. That is, as international students, we require to put tax forms. And I believe there are workshops held, but what I found was very helpful was a free software that we get, the global tax software. And that makes it very simple to put out your taxes. So that was a very helpful resource because tax funds can get. Yeah, that's an important time. Yeah, yeah. I guess for all incoming internationalists at this point, don't worry about it yet, but it's great and wonderful resources. And we do offer the software every year. So it's free of charge to all international students to use as long as you are non-resident and for tax percurs. And we also work with Michigan State Garmin agencies to help international students to file Michigan tax return as well. But that's something you can put it on hold and don't worry until next year. The resources will be available. I have two things to share. The first one is you can get an app. Like if you are having a smartphone, you can get a Michigan app which lists everything, it's embers, courses, course illustration, Merlin, Merlin is a basically library management software for the Michigan and other campus activities. Like you can have everything related to Michigan, University of Michigan app. It's really a very good app. It's available on Android and iOS both. So the second one is like if you're coming from India, if you're coming from India and you have a vegetarian background, so you don't need to convert your vegetarian status to non-vegetarian, like you can have everything vegetarian. So I mean, generally the perception in India is like, if you're going to America, you have to be non-vegetarian because there's only non-vegetarian food available. But an app is specific. You can have a lot of vegetarian options as well. Yes. I can also add something. Well, you can ask any questions you have and to sample for the, even for the Office of Academic Program Officer. If you have questions other than academic, you can ask and they will refer to someone you can ask directly. So that will be helpful. So you do not need to worry. Right, you'll get your answers. Yeah. That's a good American way to talk about things. We're entering a classic American style where we talk about all the positive things that you can think about. Right. Are there any comments you have about, closing comments about things they should look forward to? They're two months in, gonna be here. What sort of things should they really be looking forward to? Well, I can have advice like, maybe they should check the websites of their departments very carefully during that time. And if they are in a department that requires rotations, they should check the web pages of the labs that they're interested in, get familiar with the faces of them. So it will be really helpful when they get here. Good suggestion. I have one thing to add. So the weather for Michigan, if you may notice, so last winter is like the worst winter in recent years. Even history, we like to say it. Yeah. So just remember to bring a large coat. And the large coat means not really thick, really warm. So I have a friend who come from South Florida. So at the very beginning, I asked like, Michigan's winter is terrible. Did you bring any coat? He said, well, yeah, I bring something. Then he showed me a jacket which is very thin. I was like, wow, are you kidding me? But then he said, well, this is like the thickest thing I will wear in South Florida. I was like, okay, let's see. And after a winter storming day, he said, no, I will get a coat today immediately. And if you don't want to pack one, there are lots of options locally. All of the stores will carry everything that you will need to stay on. And you won't need them probably until November. So let's hope, yeah. So not immediately when you're here. Right, and we do shopping trips as well for international students. So yeah, you have opportunity to go shopping and buy. And I know everybody has very limited suitcase you can bring and you want to pack everything which is impossible. So yeah, continue doing that. Oh yeah, it's just so, I mean, yeah, when you come like in two months or next month, that's the best time usually in Ann Arbor. Like from, I will say, May to October, like that's the best time in Ann Arbor. Just enjoy it. Yeah, that is a good time. So remember to check the weather before you leave the house every morning. Because it will change. I know it will change. It will change. So we've really enjoyed this first inaugural student-to-student discussion. We really appreciate our students and Kate who joined us. Natalie and I really appreciate that. We will be having another student-to-student discussion coming up that is open to all students, but you're welcome to join in for that too. And also we will be making available a summary of what you heard today. Hopefully in a couple different formats, some written and also have this available for you to view again if you'd like or pass on to your friends to view. Anything else you'd like to add, Vanley? No, just thanks for taking the time to join us. And thank you so much to the students. I think your insights are most helpful because you've been through it. So we're happy to be welcoming your new students. Very soon. Thank you. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you. See you soon. See you soon. Thank you.