Conservatory student Beverly Joy Goh’s journey at Webster has been rockier than anticipated.
Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Goh moved to Singapore when she was only 9 years old. Coming to the United States flipped her life upside down.
Aside from cultural differences, the way people in St. Louis treated and acted toward Goh was jarring to her. Even now, she is still adapting to culture shock after living in the U.S. for eight months.
International students currently make up more than one-third of all students enrolled at Webster’s U.S. campuses.
Webster University counselor Hemla Singaravelu explained that international students face a unique set of losses: their family, familiar foods and lifestyle, culture and customs, a sense of belonging and overall normalcy. Without a sense of community, students are at risk of experiencing loneliness, homesickness, isolation, confusion, depression, anxiety and have a difficult time making new friends.
“While many international students students have a desire to form friendships with their American classmates and the local community, language barriers, including different accents and experiencing microaggressions, present major obstacles,” Singaravelu said.
Goh encountered homogeneity among her peers and felt isolated being in a space where “no one else looked like her” in the Conservatory.
“When you’re alone in an environment, you start feeling a sense of loneliness,” Goh said. “When you come to a different country, systems change, the way of life changes and the people change. It’s very different coming to a place where a lot of people have never really interacted with someone from your part of the world.”
Conservatory department chair Gad Guterman believes that while students working in close proximity cannot prevent loneliness or homesickness, it does prevent them from being by themselves.
“We strive to create a sense of family within our ensemble of students and artists,” he said. “They’re drawn together because they share a passion for theater and they end up working together in a really intense training program, which means our students are rarely alone.”
Guterman says the Conservatory encourages its students to interact with diverse voices through coursework. By exploring the works of playwrights, he hopes students are intellectually and creatively contending with the questions of racism and discrimination.
Guterman also recognizes that it is paramount that students engage with people of different cultural backgrounds because it is critical to their developmental trajectory, both as artists and human beings.
“Theater is about living in other people’s shoes,” he said. “How do we create worlds on stage dreamed up by somebody else? And how do we make them come alive? It’s an exercise in empathy. We really can only practice our empathetic muscles if we are being asked to see the world through the eyes of people who are different from ourselves.”
While Goh doesn’t expect her white friends and classmates to fully understand, she believes her situation is not unique among other minority students. Despite people’s best intentions, she acknowledges no one would not be able to speak authentically about an experience that is not their own.
“You never expect your white counterparts and your white friends to be perfect. That’s never to say I’m perfect. We are never going to be able to speak about an experience that’s not ours and not our lived experience. I’m a very firm believer that there is a shared struggle of your minority race,” she said.
Going to school in Singapore gave Goh a distinction between her academic and personal life, giving her more freedom to do what she wanted in all aspects of her life. But in the U.S., she says both sides of her life have meshed together into one.
Even Goh’s parents noticed that she struggled with the shift in her environment, adding that their daughter constantly looks forward to going home.
“It’s hard for her to find community and a separation from her life in the Conservatory,” her mother, May Chan Goh, said.
Singaravelu has seen the struggles students can face firsthand, too. She’s noticed that a lack of understanding and stigma surrounding mental health often leads to students not seeking out support services.
“Students hailing from collectivistic cultures tend to harbor deep-rooted stigma and taboo related to discussing mental health, fearing the shame it will bring upon their family,” she said.
Guterman also believes it is crucial that students utilize counseling services. He said that students are referred to services such as Student Counseling & Life Development, Multicultural Center & International Student Affairs and the Reeg Academic Resource Center in times of need.
While some believe that the symptoms of mental illness stem from weaknesses in personality, they can be overcome through positive thinking and willpower. Goh tries to embody that mindset.
Like other international students, Goh now knows how to conquer her mental health battles. She’s learned the importance of being discerning with her time and presence during her first semester. She also stays in touch with friends and family in Singapore every day.
She says finding and keeping up a daily routine and actively searching for happiness in her daily life has helped her “protect her peace.”
Goh also stressed the value of being content with something she never thought she would experience: solitude.
“You never want to fall into the trap of forcing yourself into groups of friends that you don’t naturally gel with just out of the fear of being alone or being lonely,” she said. “The reality is that there’s no greater loneliness than being with people who are never going to take the time to understand you, anyway.”
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