By BRITTANY WALL

Staff Writer

At age 14, when most American teens are nervous about moving from junior high to high school, Dorea Muhammed Ali Elmadih was busy moving from one part of the world to another.

Elmadih, a freshman civil engineering major, and her family moved from Khartoum, Sudan in Africa to Shreveport four years ago. Yet, the remnants of home still remain.

"I like it better there because it is my home," Elmadih said. "The environment is a lot better."

Elmadih said the cultural differences in everything from food, to clothing, to education and even dating were evident to her as soon as she reached America.

"When I first came to [America] I noticed that the guys are a lot more disrespectful," Elmadih said. "In Sudan, the guys approach you by introducing themselves and getting to know you. They don't mention anything about liking you until later on. We take things slowly."

The age of marriage and teen pregnancy is also much lower in Khartoum than it is in America, Elmadih said.

"In the area I lived in, there was no rape at all and very little teen pregnancy," Elmadih said. "I only knew one girl that was pregnant before she got married and most people get married at around 17 or 18. Before my generation there were also arranged marriages, but they do not do that anymore."

Elmadih also said that she found education to be much more challenging and strict in her country than she does in the United States.

"A lot of times people think international students are so serious," Elmadih said. "But the school system at home is a lot stricter because the work is much harder."

But Elmadih said she came to Tech because she wants to be an engineer and she heard a lot of good things about the engineering program from some Tech graduates.

"I've been in Shreveport for a couple of years now," Elmadih said. "I met a couple of people there who graduated from Tech in engineering and all they talked about was how good Tech was."

Elmadih said she also had to get use to the difference of dress in American women and African women.

"Girls don't wear jeans but maybe once a year in my country," Elmadih said. "The rest of the time the girls just wear dresses. But the men pretty much dress the same as they do here."

Yet, some international students think that even though adjusting to the different cultures is difficult, there are much more benefits to going to school in another country.

"You get to learn more things and you get to become more independent," Rakshya Deoja, a sophomore nursing major from Kathmandu, Nepal, said. "At home your parents can tell you what to do and control you, but here you make your own decisions. You have freedom."

Many teachers on campus also said they are very supportive and confident in the effects of studying abroad.

"I think it's a wonderful idea for international students to study abroad," Dr. C. Lloyd Halliburton, a Spanish professor, said. "It gives students from the United States an opportunity to be exposed to another culture. It's also good because it gives the school a more diverse student body."