“The first two weeks I felt like it was a simulation,” Derrick Doh ’27 said when recalling his first experiences in an American grocery store. “Everything is straight, always clean. The carrots are always straight. The avocado is shiny.” He compares his “constructed” experience in an American grocery store to the busy markets and vendors that line the streets of his home city, Accra, Ghana.
Doh is a sophomore international student studying economics and environmental science, and a Bonnor student. He came to school in the United States for a wider variety of opportunities and to fulfill his community service goals. “I came to the US with a specific issue in mind that I wanted to work on, and it was a problem that we have in my home country, and I think the US also has,” Doh said. “I came with homelessness on my mind.” Since his freshman year at Stetson, Doh has worked to aid the homeless population in West Volusia through his work with the Neighborhood Center on South Woodland Boulevard.
When adjusting to living in the United States from Ghana, Doh notes his communication challenges. Though Doh spoke English in Ghana, he had to get used to the American dialect. Doh’s main obstacle was not understanding others. Instead, it was getting people to understand him. He recounts one of his first experiences at Hatter StrEats, standing at the counter in front of a long line of people, and having to repeat his order to each staff member behind the counter until one realized that by “burger and fries,” he meant he wanted the menu’s “beef sliders and fries.” “Even if I may not get the dialects and everything I could easily assume and get exactly what you’re saying,” Doh said. “And that is an effort most of us [international students] put into, like communicating with people who we don’t have the same accents, but I feel like half of the time that same effort is not reciprocated,” he said.
Anne Walcher ’24 is a previous exchange student from Freiburg, Germany who chose to study at Stetson because of the teacher education program, where she had to learn to take classes – and teach – in an unfamiliar education system. Walcher describes a German collegiate system with no homework or assignments, just final exams. “We don’t have assignments, we don’t have homework, we don’t have all the tiny grades that sum up to, like the big grade at the end,” Walcher said. “I had to get used to having assignments every week. Because the last time I had homework was, like, in 10th grade.” Walcher also had to get used to the American A-F grading system, as her grades were represented by numbers in Germany.
While navigating life and college in the United States, Doh and Walcher’s most helpful resources were people. Walcher was comforted by the friendliness of the United States and Stetson community. “It was very refreshing.” Walcher said. “People are super friendly [and] open minded. I can literally ask anybody on campus, like, where, how do I get to the CUB?” She compares this to her experience back home where it is less common to ask strangers for help directly, or speak to people you do not know.
Doh has a close group of other African students who help him stay grounded in who he is and connected with his culture. “I feel like being in the US and being very different in the US [you have to] constantly make sure you are in touch with who you are, and not to just get lost in trying to sound American, trying to eat American, trying to do everything American,” he said. His friends do everything from helping him with his calculus homework, to giving him a space to speak freely.
Doh and Walcher are among many students who travel from outside the United States to Stetson each year, where they create connections, join organizations and learn new subjects, all while adjusting to a new culture.
