The view could not be any more different from Azhar Sultanova's bedroom window.
Instead of admiring the towering mountain peaks in her homeland of Kazakhstan, Sultanova sees a wet basketball court and a children's playground, abandoned on this cold winter morning in East Lansing.
But Sultanova isn't discouraged by the dreary scene.
"I've gotten used to it," the psychology sophomore said.
She has spent the last four months adjusting to life at MSU, just as 3,526 other undergraduate international students have.
These students must deal with a long list of obstacles, ranging from keeping up in their English-spoken classes to finding new friends, said Rosemary Max, assistant director for the Office for International Students and Scholars.
"One of the biggest challenges is getting a visa to actually come here," Max said, because of the strict U.S.-imposed requirements on some countries, such as Saudi Arabia. "It could be as short as several weeks or as long as several months."
But it doesn't end there.
This growing group, which has increased its enrollment by 6 percent from last year, must also adapt to the cultural differences — no matter how large or small.
For Jimin Lee, the holidays are a radical change.
On Christmas Day in East Lansing, the storefronts stay dark and restaurants close down so people can celebrate together at home. In South Korea, the decorated streets would be swarming with people eating out or shopping for good deals.
"In Korea, all the stores are open," Lee said. "Everyone comes out."
Christian Orlic doesn't mind walking alone in East Lansing at night, something he never did when he lived at home in Lima, Peru.
"I've never walked alone in my life, not even two blocks," Orlic said.
Shortly before his high school graduation, Orlic was outside at a friend's house when four people jumped out of a car and one pointed a gun to his chest, demanding all of his possessions.
The Peruvian capital city can be a dangerous place — kidnappings and muggings are not uncommon.
His entire environment has changed since he came to MSU three years ago. Orlic can walk the streets of East Lansing without any fear, although he still keeps a cautious eye.
When Sultanova walked into her first class at MSU, she was shocked to find students wearing sweatpants and tennis shoes.
Back in Kazakhstan, college students dress more formally, in high heels or suits, as if they're going to work.
"(Here) you can just wake up and go to the university — it's normal," Sultanova said.
Tough times
Sultanova still vividly remembers the day she left Kazakhstan four months ago.
At the airport, all of her extended family and friends clustered around her until it was time for her to pass through the security checkpoint alone.
"Everyone was crying, just looking at each other," she said. "At that time, in the airport, I did not want to go to America."
The hardest part was saying goodbye to her mother, 44-year-old Aizhan Sultanova, who has been her best friend. They had often spent hours debating deep philosophical questions and wondering about their place in the world. Sultanova even worked for the same makeup company, Mary Kay, as her mother.
"It was hard for me not to feel her presence," the 18-year-old said.
During her first semester away from home, she would cry in her dorm room when she thought about her old life back in Kazakhstan. Sultanova's roommate, Karina Zaur, heard the late-night sobs and understood the homesickness pains.
Like Sultanova, Zaur hails from Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan.
On the same 20-hour flight to Michigan, the two women met for the first time. To pass the long hours traveling, they began talking about their families and realized they had lived only one street from each other.
"We were neighbors in our city, and we didn't know each other," Sultanova said.
Now Zaur, a public administration sophomore, and Sultanova live together in a small red-brick apartment on campus.
It makes it easier for Sultanova knowing she has a friend from Kazakhstan close at hand when MSU feels overwhelming.
For many international students, adjusting to American culture gets smoother as soon as they can find a network of people from their own country at MSU.
Oftentimes, students from India, Korea and China — the three most represented foreign countries at MSU — have an easier time forming their own social networks, said Max, of the international students office.
"(They) find a community here very quickly," she said.
Others aren't so lucky.
Lee was on her own once she moved into her dorm room in Owen Graduate Hall in August.
Every single face on campus was new — she knew no one.
"My whole life had been changed," said the 22-year-old junior, who had lived in South Korea's capital city of Seoul.
Her small dorm, which people have nicknamed "the birdcage" because of its cramped size, was the place where she found the most solace. There, she spent hours studying for her hospitality business major and lined her refrigerator with food from the local Korean grocery store to replace her mother's home cooking.
"I just kept staying in my room reading," Lee said. "I didn't really learn about Michigan life."
The hard work paid off, and Lee received high marks. She was proud to tell her family about her grades, since they paid a tuition bill of $14,000 for each semester.
The new year is a fresh start, and Lee wants to leave her room to make more American friends.
So far, the semester seems promising.
On Monday, Lee felt confident enough to talk with some of the other students in her classes. She explained to a transfer student sitting next to her how to use ANGEL and check the syllabus online — something she herself didn't understand a semester ago.
The payoff
Despite the pitfalls of leaving home, Orlic has poured himself into science, a passion that might not be a reality if he remained in Peru.
"I get to do a lot of things that would be impossible there because of a lack in resources," he said.
He volunteers in a Biomedical and Physical Sciences lab to study the bacteria E. coli and evolution. The expensive equipment he has used in the MSU lab for the past 14 months are not available in Peru.
In between his volunteering, Orlic will take 18 credits this semester as he pursues four different undergraduate degrees from James Madison College and the Lyman Briggs School.
He wants to live outside Peru after he finishes his degrees and graduate school, so he can continue studying evolutionary biology.
For Sultanova, coming to America has always been a dream since she first saw the beautiful faces onscreen in the Hollywood movies.
It also is a chance to visit the big metropolitan U.S. cities and famous monuments that before she could only read about in books.
Already she has been to New York with her roommate. During winter break, the two women spent New Year's Eve surrounded by the mass of jubilant people in Times Square. Pictures of the city's illuminated skyline at night decorate Sultanova's apartment, reminding her of the trip.
Now she has formulated a list of more places she wants to go during the rest of her vacations from school.
"Los Angeles, Las Vegas, East Coast, Florida, the sea," Sultanova ticks off. "What else do I want to see? Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains. What else? That's all."
