1. The article that I read this week, it examines global student mobility trends, the status of the U.S. as a study destination, and the challenges it faces. The article notes that while the U.S. remains the largest host country for international students due to its excellent academic system, diverse institutions, and cultural and economic appeal, its dominance is being challenged by increasing competition and domestic policies. The author analyzes the “push” and “pull” factors influencing student mobility and highlights the negative impacts post-9/11, including stricter visa regulations, safety perceptions, and aggressive recruitment by competitor nations like Australia, the UK, and the EU. Furthermore, the article anticipates the potential effects of emerging transnational higher education and distance learning on student flows and points out the lack of a coherent national strategy for international education in the U.S., which could undermine its long-term competitiveness.
2. This paper provides a particularly crucial backdrop for my project. My short film captures the authentic details of daily life for international students in Philadelphia—the awkwardness of boarding the wrong bus, the embarrassment of not understanding supermarket labels, or the delight of finding familiar ingredients from home for the first time in a foreign land.
Alterbach’s research acts as a commentator, helping me understand why we came here and why we face these challenges. The visa policies and safety concerns he mentions actually impact our daily lives.
Now I can connect these broader contexts with my personal stories. For instance, while filming Temple University’s international student services, I thought about the article’s mention of a “lack of national-level strategy.” When documenting Chinese students gathering on Fridays, I saw what the article didn’t explicitly state—their efforts to find a sense of belonging within the gaps of policy.
3. Writing in class activity
Arriving in Philadelphia as a newcomer, I treat belonging as something the body learns to do over time. Classen’s account of culturally specific “sensory regimes” becomes my starter kit for orientation: I listen, smell, and touch before I claim to “see,” letting the city’s atmospheres tutor a novice body. Sutton’s idea of food as a “sensory anchor” reframes early survival rituals standing in bakery air, prowling Chinatown aisles, cooking a familiar dish and sending that first steam back home, as practical tools for self-maintenance rather than nostalgia. Thrift’s non-representational theory steers the camera toward these pre-reflective practices and affects, the subway’s low rumble felt through bone, diamond-shaped sun on a fire escape, so the film traces process instead of hunting for perfect pictures.
As routines accumulate, objects begin to “speak”: bilingual labels, grease-stained wrappers, and reused coffee cups circulate with traces of trade and migration, making quiet co-narrators of my settling-in. Gradually, paths harden into habits and place attachment takes shape, one library seat, a Friday gathering, the smell of Kenyan spices in a friend’s kitchen echoing Altman’s multi-dimensional account of how space turns into place. Framed by narrative inquiry into cross-cultural study and everyday adaptation, this memory map shows belonging not as a single epiphany but as a slow accretion of sensory routines, object histories, and micro-rituals that let a newcomer begin to lead the way for others.
4. This week I submitted equipment borrowing requests to the equipment office and successfully reserved core gear including a Canon video camera, tripods, and reflectors. This equipment will ensure stable image quality for upcoming interviews and shoots, particularly providing professional support for indoor lighting control in Victor’s kitchen scenes and street follow-cam footage.
While compiling the equipment list, I realized filming is about to enter its substantive phase, a prospect that fills me with both anticipation and a touch of nervousness. I’m currently contemplating how to translate the theoretical framework into concrete visual language.
Reference:Altbach, P. G. (2004). Higher education crosses borders: Can the United States remain the top destination for foreign students?. Change: the magazine of higher learning, 36(2), 18-25.
Komissarova, O. (2020). International student enrollment trends in the United States: Economic perspectives (Doctoral dissertation, Seton Hall University).