International student shockers: My 3 academic surprises 😂…. (Most of us have one of these experiences)
Coming from a different academic system, adjusting to new ways of learning in the U.S. was filled with some unexpected moments.
Here are three things that completely surprised me during my time as an international student:
✅ Technologically Inexperienced
→ In my first epidemiology lab assignment (the famous outbreak investigation at luncheon), we were given an infection outbreak to solve.
→ Naturally, I did what I was used to—spending hours manually calculating parameters like the number of cases and case fatality rates. I spent over 4 hours working on that assignment!
→ During our lab session the following day, I asked my labmates if they had looked at the lab problem.
Most said, “Oh, no, we’ll look now.” In my head, I thought, How would you do something that took me 4 hours in 20 minutes?
To my shock, they completed it in less than 20 minutes using Excel formulas. 😳
Why did I go through medical school without ever learning Excel❓
Most of my fellow African students spent hours on that assignment, just like I did.
That weekend, I made it my mission to learn Excel, spending the entire weekend mastering it.
By the end of the year, I had over-mastered Excel so much that my MBA internship was developing a costing model in Excel for the Lesotho government. 😄
✔︎ Lesson learned: Excel skills are life-changing!
✅ Cheat Sheet or Formula Sheet
→ My second academic shocker was during my first biostatistics exam.
→ I had spent much time memorizing all the formulas I thought we’d need.
→ But then, to my surprise, the professor told us, “We’ll give you a sheet with all the formulas—you just need to understand how and when to use them.”
That was a complete game-changer!
Coming from a background where we memorized entire pages of formulas, this felt like a relief.
It shifted the focus from rote memorization to fundamental understanding.
✔︎ Lesson learned: It’s more about comprehension than memorization.
✅ Open Book/Notes Exams
The third surprise? Open book and open notes exams! I thought, So you’re telling me I don’t need to memorize every line of my textbook like the Krebs cycle?
That was entirely new for me.
In my previous academic experience, exams were based on how well you memorized and understood entire textbooks.
But here’s the catch—it wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Just because it was an open book didn’t mean you didn’t have to understand the material.
The questions were more about applying knowledge than recalling it.
✔︎ Lesson learned: Open-book exams still require deep understanding!
As an international student, these experiences reshaped how I approached learning.
To any other international student, surprises are all part of the growth!
What’s your most surprising academic experience? Share below!
#InternationalStudents #graduateschool #academia
Coming from a different academic system, adjusting to new ways of learning in the U.S. was filled with some unexpected moments.
Here are three things that completely surprised me during my time as an international student:
✅ Technologically Inexperienced
→ In my first epidemiology lab assignment (the famous outbreak investigation at luncheon), we were given an infection outbreak to solve.
→ Naturally, I did what I was used to—spending hours manually calculating parameters like the number of cases and case fatality rates. I spent over 4 hours working on that assignment!
→ During our lab session the following day, I asked my labmates if they had looked at the lab problem.
Most said, “Oh, no, we’ll look now.” In my head, I thought, How would you do something that took me 4 hours in 20 minutes?
To my shock, they completed it in less than 20 minutes using Excel formulas. 😳
Why did I go through medical school without ever learning Excel❓
Most of my fellow African students spent hours on that assignment, just like I did.
That weekend, I made it my mission to learn Excel, spending the entire weekend mastering it.
By the end of the year, I had over-mastered Excel so much that my MBA internship was developing a costing model in Excel for the Lesotho government. 😄
✔︎ Lesson learned: Excel skills are life-changing!
✅ Cheat Sheet or Formula Sheet
→ My second academic shocker was during my first biostatistics exam.
→ I had spent much time memorizing all the formulas I thought we’d need.
→ But then, to my surprise, the professor told us, “We’ll give you a sheet with all the formulas—you just need to understand how and when to use them.”
That was a complete game-changer!
Coming from a background where we memorized entire pages of formulas, this felt like a relief.
It shifted the focus from rote memorization to fundamental understanding.
✔︎ Lesson learned: It’s more about comprehension than memorization.
✅ Open Book/Notes Exams
The third surprise? Open book and open notes exams! I thought, So you’re telling me I don’t need to memorize every line of my textbook like the Krebs cycle?
That was entirely new for me.
In my previous academic experience, exams were based on how well you memorized and understood entire textbooks.
But here’s the catch—it wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Just because it was an open book didn’t mean you didn’t have to understand the material.
The questions were more about applying knowledge than recalling it.
✔︎ Lesson learned: Open-book exams still require deep understanding!
As an international student, these experiences reshaped how I approached learning.
To any other international student, surprises are all part of the growth!
What’s your most surprising academic experience? Share below!
#InternationalStudents #graduateschool #academia
