International Student Experiences at Community Colleges: An Inquiry into the Experiences and Barriers of International Students in the Twin Cities

This qualitative research study primarily explored the lived experiences of international students studying at three community colleges in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. As a phenomenological research, its primary purpose was to examine the commonality of experiences and barriers encountered by international students studying at these three institutions. The researcher conducted the study on a wide range of students from a number of nations around the world such as Peru, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, The Gambia, Kenya, Pakistan, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. While it is a fact that this study explored challenges and barriers encountered by nearly all international students studying in the United States, there are limitations to the findings since it only covered international students at three institutions in the Twin Cities.

As a result, opinions, and thoughts, conclusions provided by the participants may not necessarily be the experiences of international students at other institutions or countries. Therefore, data collected in this study was not generalizable, because it is limited to the three institutions where the participants constituted part of the study. However, previous studies indicated similar outcomes of international students. The researcher would like to acknowledge these previous studies as the basis for the problem statement and significance of this study. It is also the hope of the researcher that this study will serve as a guide and tool for graduate students doing a qualitative research, by providing them opportunity to have an understanding of the process and nature of qualitative research especially qualitative phenomenological research. Students conducting qualitative research should also be able to use this tool because it is rooted in the application of the American Psychological Association (APA) style of writing. This cogent writing style is easy to comprehend because it is user-friendly and convincingly provides clear in-text citations, which are relatively easy to follow.