The psychological view of the difficulties encountered by international student

Introduction
There are a growing number of students across the world choose to further their study in overseas countries such as United States, United Kingdom and Australia. After arriving at a different environment, they may experience the local culture and customs at the first time, which can exert a negative effect on both their physical and mental health. According to Leslie and Smith’s survey (2004) some students complain that they are easier undergoing mood swings than they usually do in home country. In this essay, I will firstly try to list the symptoms and causes of the mood swings and then find some approaches to it.

Symptoms & Causes
From Leslie and Smith’s (2004) study, one student says, “I find that I get angry and upset more easily here, because I often don’t understand what’s going on” (Leslie & Smith, 2004: Respondent 12). We can easily notice that frustration and depression occurred when people surrounded by an unfamiliar circumstances. Apart from that, they may be shocked by the cultural differences. For example, one student complains that “when I first came here, I was shocked to see the cultural differences” (Leslie & Smith, 2004: Respondent 13). Instead of being active, students may hold the negative attitudes toward culture shock and it may leads to the inadaptation of life. Apart from the symptoms list above, people may experience physical illness, low self-esteem, low morale, social isolation, dissatisfaction with life, bitterness, homesickness, disorientation, anxiety, depression, role strain, identity confusion, stress, loneliness, self-doubt, hostility, distress, personality disintegration, helplessness, irritability, fear, and self-deprecation (Brown, 2008, as cited in Adelegan & Parks,1985; Adler, 1975;Alexander, Workneh, Klein, & Miller, 1976; Berry, 1994;Detweiler, 1980; Furnham & Alibhai, 1985; Gudykunst, 1998; Hofstede, 1991; Jaobson-Widding, 1983; Kim, 1988; Persaud, 1993; Storti, 1990 ). These negative feelings students experience occur whenever people cannot do all the things they are accustomed to doing in their everyday lives. These include work, home and leisure related activities and study and it could also refer to the potential thoughts and thinking patterns people hold in their values. For example, sometimes because of the different lifestyles people get up late in the morning and cannot sleep at noon. Other example can be transportation, which makes it hard for people to move around as freely and widely as they accustomed to.

Effect & Solution
Learning attitudes have connection to language proficiency as well as academic achievement. Similar to the findings reported by students, Stoynoff (1997) found that motivation, self-testing and test taking strategies were modestly related to achievement as measured by GPA, credits completed, incompletes, withdrawals and pass/no pass courses(Andrade, 2006, p.9). Moreover, our learning attitudes have relationship with our characteristics and according to Andrade (2006), she studied how specific adjustment variables such as language proficiency, study habits, educational background and personal characteristics affect