International Student STORIES: Global Flows of Education, Labour & Dreams
STORY 9 (Is Balance Canadian or is it Christian? by Susan)
Moving from home countries to host countries, settling down from coast to coast; here, we offer Stories from International Students in Canada. These are students’ voices and may echo your own experience. Even though they may not be known personally (names are protected for privacy), we invite you to hear: why they chose Canada to study, how they have worked to build new lives here, the ways in which they contribute and make a difference both at home and here, and significantly, how their lives cross paths with Jesus Christ.
Being an Asian-American, Susan left home at the age of 17 to pursue further studies in different places around the world. Now a PhD student in Linguistics in a smaller Canadian city, Susan speaks very personally about her faith, uncertainty, cultural differences, and the challenges of being an international student in Canada.
Story 9 – Is Balance Canadian or is it Christian? by Susan
Joy of seeking and finding God
Encouraged by her parents, released rather than held back, Susan began seeking to honour the Lord through her scholarship long before she applied to a PhD program in a smaller Canadian city. But her 5.5 years as a PhD student in Linguistics have expanded that seeking and offered the joy of finding. Some of the specific ways she felt called to be a Christian scholar were exactly the same reasons why studying in Canada has made sense.
Canada, with its egalitarian and socialistic values, seemed like a place to cultivate Susan’s values of balance and service. Having left home at 17, she had already achieved degrees at prestigious institutions in New England and in Hong Kong, and had rubbed shoulders with the best in her field. These contexts had reinforced what her Asian-American culture already held to be sacred: that if you work hard, if you work and work and work, you’ll succeed. You often need to forget about others or even to step on others if you want to ascend as a star in your field. But she knew that God’s way went in an opposite direction: downward, into the earthiness of a committed community, the obscurity of serving those who can’t reward you with fame, and the darkness of winter. Instead of looking around for others who could lift you up, who could generate new lines for your resume, Susan found that God’s way was to guide her to look around for people to serve. She now looks back at that culture of aggressive self-promotion that predominates at Global elite universities and sees it as a scarcity mindset. That culture obsesses fearfully with the question, “Who’s taking up our resources?” But God offers more than enough, so we are freed to serve and to rest.
Challenges in Canada: Winter Loneliness, Healthcare Access Challenges, Common stressors among international students
In Canada where God led her through the painful blessing of closed doors elsewhere, Susan expected an opportunity to build a work-life balance while studying here. As soon as she arrived here, Susan let her colleagues know that she pursued that balance and that the balance was for the sake of her Christian faith. They got the point and they have always respected Susan’s wishes, but they haven’t always embraced her invitation to be friends rather than competitors, and they haven’t shared her priorities of service and rest.
Canadians, Susan found, often exude niceness but gradually reveal this is not the same as kindness. People seemed so open but turned out to be closed, and Susan became lonely. Fall snowfall turned to ice and refused to melt till April; the lack of human kindness and the danger of slipping kept her home for days on end. She had heard that the medical system wasn’t as quick as it used to be to help the sick – particularly sick foreigners, who didn’t know the shortcuts – and this turned out to be true because Susan could access very little help when her mental health was poor.
So Canada couldn’t sustain all Susan’s expectations, and she has the impression the society might be moving farther from them. Post-graduation Work Permits (PGWPs) are so hard to get now that international students feel even more financial pressure and more competition. Bottlenecks in the medical system are more frequent, and some Canadians seem to be blaming newcomers like her.
Finding where God wants her to be
At the same time, Susan has become more and more aware that she is where God wants her to be. What Canadian society and its institutions couldn’t provide was provided – and more! – by smaller communities of Christians and international students where her determination to be more than just a scholar was not only seen but shared. People have found room in their lives for health, for friendship, and for service, like Susan has done. They have sought to serve one another and to serve vulnerable populations through their research, not just to be served. Relationships are not just transactional. She says that her Inter-Varsity community of graduate students became for her “a thin place on campus,” a holy community where a PhD student could reach outside of their bubbles and touch the wide world beyond their dissertation.
Susan knows that God has brought her to Canada, keeping her close to the ground, protecting her from a kind of greatness that would not have been good for her. Her post-PhD steps might lead her to a prestigious Postdoc, or might lead her to the role of caregiver for an elderly relative. In either case, Susan’s experience and God’s gifts shown to her in Canada have assured Susan that she won’t need to sacrifice her life at the altar of academic success.
Ready to talk more? Have questions? Join our International Student STORIES Webinar, Tue Mar 24 @ 7 pm ET.
Co-hosted by CSCA Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation. Email admin@globalscholarscanada.ca to register for the link. Read stories 1-8 on www.globalscholarscanada.ca