Twenty-two year-old Ms. Kim (an assumed name) is now a college student

Twenty-two year-old Ms. Kim (an assumed name) is now a college student first came to America, for her second year of junior high. She came to America alone, without her parents, and has remained here alone, through junior high to high school, and then to college. Because her middle school and high schools were not in Korean residential areas, she was almost always without Korean classmates or friends and has trouble making friends in college. She was also the victim of bullying.

A professional counselor familiar with Ms Kim’s experience explained: “She didn’t make American friends in her school days, and perhaps worse, was the victim of racial discrimination. Now, as a young adult, she is still struggling to establish her identity. So much so, in fact, that she is displaying symptoms of becoming a non-communicative and isolated individual.” The counselor added that this is a frequent path for many of the students who go abroad alone to study at an early age.

This problem is noticeable among Korean students who left home without their parents when they were still young, and came to America to study. Most of them were sent by parents expecting their children to become fluent English speakers, and to learn in America’s superior educational system. But as they grow into adults, many of these exchange students are showing the effects of their experience.

This is especially true for the first generation of young students, who came here in the 1990s. Many of the problems these adults now experience were hidden during their school days, but are now visible in American society.

Youth experts and counselors explain that exchange students, especially those who grow up without their parents, are at high-risk for developmental difficulties, such as poor self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and poor assimilation into American society.

These difficulties may well remain hidden until the young adult leaves the world of school and enters the workforce as a “productive” member of society.

According to the Korean Educational Development Institute, the number of youth sent abroad each year to study the elementary, middle and high school levels has increased six fold between 2000 and 2008, rising from 4,397 to 27,349 annually, for a total of almost 155,000 students.

Many young Korean exchange students have focused too heavily on their academic grades and learning specific languages, such as English, German, and French, experts say; they consider that this intense focus has influenced the students’ development at a crucial time in their formative years, when they need the parental love, support and category_idance necessary for an adolescent’s identity, character, and personality. Many experts feel that the problems these young adults now face and carry over into society are rooted in the absence of such parental support.

By No-yol Kim, The Korea Times, 14 September 2010. Translated from Korean by Sun-Yong Reinish.