The students spent the day immersed in Global Transition, a five-day program that welcomes undergraduate international students to Fordham and the Big Apple. They moved into their new homes, toured the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses, and mingled with other students from around the world. The new students—many of them accompanied by their parents—had flown in from countries as far away as Syria, Sweden, and South Africa. Over the next week, they would explore the city’s attractions, including Coney Island, the High Line, Greenwich Village, and a Mets game. But the first day of Global Transition was their chance to sit, breathe, and take it all in.

In the dining room in the Fordham Law building, four incoming students—James Widodo, Michael Utomo, Quan Tran, and Li Wang—shared a table and traded stories. They talked about their hometowns, the reasons why they chose Fordham, and their love for the city.

“Everyone moves like they have a purpose [here],” said Widodo, an Indonesian native. Life in New York, he added, is far more fast-paced than his hometown of Jakarta, more than 10,000 miles away.

One of the biggest reasons why Widodo chose Fordham is the University’s famous location. The other, he said, was the prestigious reputation of the Gabelli School of Business, where he’ll be studying global finance and business economics. Nearly half of the incoming first-year international students—102, to be exact—are enrolled in the Gabelli School of Business. Other common majors include economics, film and television, integrative neuroscience, and psychology.

The incoming international class comprises 249 students, which includes first-year students and transfer students. They come from 45 different countries of citizenship, with the largest group of students hailing from China. 

First-year international students took in a Mets game during Global Transition…

…and received a warm welcome on the big screen!

In total, Fordham is home to 849 international undergraduate students. Last fall, the total number was 780, said Salvatore Longarino, director of international services.

As some of the newest members of this group, Widodo and his new friends prepared for life in a new city with a mixture of trepidation and enthusiasm.

“The thing that I will miss the most about home is being able to know the whole city,” said Tran, a student from Hanoi, Vietnam. “Here, I’m a stranger. I have to learn.”

The group also chatted about their favorite dishes from home. Widodo and Utomo—high school friends from the Jakarta International School—will miss the taste of martabak, a stuffed pancake sold from street carts in Indonesia. Wang, a student from China, will miss the fresh seafood netted by fishermen along the shores of Shanghai. But these newcomers also say they’re excited to try new things: Shake Shack, pho from Vietnamese restaurants in the city, and parties on the Upper East Side.

And the most shocking thing about New York? “The fact that we’re here,” Tran said.

Video by Taylor Ha and Tom Stoelker

More than 300 students—including new freshmen, transfer students, exchange students, and American citizens who went to high school abroad—participate in the Global Transition program.

“It’s a great way to get to know the campus and other people, and to get help with all sorts of questions, such as immigration and visas,” said student leader Gladys Bendahan, a rising sophomore who participated in the program last year when she arrived from the Canary Islands.

“We are here to tell them that we all go through the same situation, that it’s normal to be nervous or to be homesick,” she said. “And to let them know they’re going to have an amazing experience.”

Of the total Global Transition participants, 207 are new freshmen members of the Class of 2020, making for the largest cohort of international incoming freshmen in Fordham history. As the University welcomes increasingly more students from around the world, the program is critical to helping students make the move to Fordham, said Monica Esser, director of international enrollment initiatives.

“We encourage the new international students to feel confident in their new surroundings, step out of their comfort zones and take advantage of all the opportunities Fordham has to offer,” Esser said. “Global Transition helps to create a supportive set of social connections for students to do all this—and to fully embrace the Fordham experience.”

The initial day of Global Transition was dedicated to moving in and helping the students get to know one another. In the following days, the group attended information sessions on topics such as cultural adjustment, health and wellness in the U.S., and Jesuit mission and identity.

There has also been plenty of time for fun, however—the group has taken trips to various New York City sites and participated in a scavenger hunt around the Lincoln Center campus.

“I don’t know if I’m just feeling this way now, or if the homesickness will hit later, but I feel like we’re already home,” Paula Najas, a new first-year student from Ecuador, said shortly after her team won the campus scavenger hunt.

Her teammate Jaissal Shalgolsen, from India, agreed.

“I always thought New York was a busy city and people had no time for each other. But here there’s been a community already set up and they’re here to welcome us and it feels like home already,” he said. “I was a tourist before, but now I’m settling down here and Global Transition has helped me to settle down really fast.”

An important component of Global Transition, said Esser, is the Global Transition Parent Program, which invites the families of international students to participate in a variety of activities while the students are orienting. Activities include a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Fordham faculty and a reception with Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“We found the families of new international students—who may only travel the often long distance to Fordham for move in and commencement—eager for interaction with each other and the Fordham community,” Esser said.

“Of course, dropping your child off across the world feels better when you know members of their community and the families of their new friends.”

The occasion was an Aug. 26 dean’s reception for parents of international students from the Class of 2019. Elsewhere on campus their children were acclimating to their new school through the Global Transitions Program, an extensive orientation geared toward international students.

Donna Rapaccioli, PhD, dean of the Gabelli School of Business, and Maura Mast, PhD, dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, joined Father Grimes to welcome the parents of the largest international class to date. Rapaccioli, a mother of three, said she was well versed in the college move-in day.

“I remember it was a was a proud moment, but one that was filled with anxiety,” she said. “But Fordham has an ecosystem that will ensure that your child has the support they need.”

For her part, Mast said she could relate to the students, as this was her first public event as the new dean at Rose Hill. She is the first woman to fill the role since the college’s inception in 1841.

“I chose to come to Fordham for many of the same reasons that your children did,” she said, adding that she appreciated Fordham’s emphasis on the undergraduate experience. “Your sons and daughters will broaden their world socially, culturally, academically, and I hope spiritually.”

The event was a new initiative for the Parents’ Leadership Council that offered moms and dads their own orientation to Fordham. Parents went on a tour of Rose Hill, attended the reception, and a later were welcomed at an elegant dinner. The following day, Isabelle Frank, dean of the School of Professional and Continuing Studies, joined Midori Yamamura, PhD, lecturer in art, to lead parents on a tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Move-in day is important because we leave our kids to the University,” said Andrea Mennillo, the international chair of the Parents’ Leadership Council. “Fordham is a great community, and families are a part of that.”

Eric and Anna Pichardo, of Tijuana, Mexico, arrived at the reception with bags from a Uniqlo, the Japanese clothing store. Earlier that day they were in Queens at Costco and Target, getting dorm room supplies for their daughter, Erica, a freshman at Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

“She was calling us all day, saying ‘I need this, I forgot this, and I need that,’” Eric said with a laugh.

He said he was calm about his daughter’s transition, being that the parents have been schooling their daughters in California since the girls were in first grade. Anna was a bit more apprehensive. She was worried that Erica might not like the food.

No such problem with incoming freshman Chenyang Fu from Shanghai, China, said her mother Amy Liu.

“She likes the city, she likes the University, and she loves the food,” she said.

Some of the international students toured the campus last winter. But many were encountering it for the first time, as was the case with freshman Jake Chen. His parents, Joanne and Peter Chen, said that he had just finished his national service in Singapore.

“We’ve raised our kids to be as international as possible,” said Peter. “Jake is very capable, so his adjusting is the least of my worries.”

With this year’s crop of new international students hailing from Saudi Arabia to Spain, from Monaco to Mexico, and from Italy to India, the parents exhibited the mix of pride and anxiety that Rapaccioli described.

But the Global Transitions program for parents, which offered them three days to get to know fellow international parents, did offer a measure of calm, said Trygve Kjolseth, who arrived with his son Thomas from Norway.

“When we walked around campus this morning I thought, ‘This is a really good group, we should get together again,’” he said. “Our families seem to have some common denominators, and that gives me a good feeling about the community for the kids.”