The end of senior year is tough for just about everyone but the most pragmatic and punctilious of students, but for 14 in the class of 2010 there’s more to consider than finishing a thesis. For Whitman’s international students, graduation poses questions and issues of a different nature than those facing most domestic students, just as the process which led them to campus four years ago took far more paperwork and bureaucratic hurdling.

Most student visas will soon expire, and the decision to go home or stay in the states begs attention in a period where seniors are already feeling short on time. If a student does decide to remain in the United States they’ll have to complete the Optional Practical Training extension, which allows graduates to work for up to a year within the United States in a field related to their studies without need for an additional work visa.

“There’s a $340 fee and the adjudication and approval process is laboriously slow,” said Kris Barry, the International Student and Scholar Advisor on campus. Always an undertaking and generally a hassle, this year and last have been particularly difficult, Barry said, as the jobs simply aren’t there.

With such matters on their minds, a few international students still managed to find time during the last week of classes to discuss their experiences.

For most, coming to Whitman was a major leap of faith. Campus visits are a rather different matter if you’re from Burma or Ecuador, so admission decisions for international students are often based on specific programs and a good deal of Internet research and word of mouth.

“I chose [Whitman] because of the core program. I couldn’t visit campus, so it was stuff that I read online . . . and here I am,” said Nanda Lin, a senior from Burma double majoring in studio art and politics.

Once admitted, international students face a visa process that dwarfs the paperwork domestic students grapple with. Kris Barry fills out an I-20 form and then each student completes the application for a student visa within their home country, a process more difficult for some depending on origin.

“It was very difficult because back home there was the whole issue of terrorism in 2006 when I was first coming here. It was a long process . . . It’s definitely very difficult for a Sri Lankan to get a visa to come here,” said senior Krishani Peiris, an economics major who left home in the midst of civil war.

“For me it was much easier. The relationship between Ecuador and the United States in 2006 was good, and my school helped me a lot . . . The I-20 was basically what I needed to get the visa, and with that I had no problem,” said senior Barbara Mantilla, a biology major from Ecuador.

Adjusting to life in the states can be another process. All far from home, the international students are thrown together from the get go through programs put together by the Intercultural Center, and many opt to be paired with a “friendship family” here in Walla Walla that acts as a stand-in family away from home.

“They make home cooked meals when you’re feeling homesick, and when you’re having finals they make you sweets and stuff like that . . . that was very helpful,” said Peiris.

“And they give you grown-up advice when you need it,” added Mantilla.

“It’s important because the family aspect can feel like it’s missing sometimes,” said senior Neda Ansaari, a psychology major from India. She’s excited to have her friendship family join her mom and dad, who are making the long trip to be here for graduation and will  finally get to see where she’s spent the last four years.

While that missing family aspect is certainly difficult, the international students have become a bit of a family group themselves.

“We’re very closely knit together,” said Peiris.

“Especially because we’ve all gone through the same situation,” Mantilla said.

Graduation means that these students will be scattered all over the world, in contrast to the general country-wide dispersal of domestic students, making the close to the last four years particularly bittersweet.

“I’m very happy to be graduating, but we don’t know where we’re all going to be, just that we’ll be in touch,” Mantilla said.

“It’s hard to let go now we’ve found this. We are going to all different countries, and we don’t know when we will see each other,” said Peiris. The group has some fledgling plans to form a communal travel fund to finance future international visits, and there’s talk of standardizing future wedding invitations to include roundtrip airfare.

The students’ plans are widely varied: Peiris will be going home to Sri Lanka and then on to Japan to teach English, while Mantilla will be returning to Ecuador where she’ll pursue a medical degree in Quito. Nanda is heading back to Burma, where he intends to work in the field for a developmental or environmental NGO and has plans to open an art gallery/free expression space in Yangon in the works, before he continues with graduate school. Ansaari has applied for her OPT extension, but isn’t sure whether her plans involve graduate school or a return to India just yet.

Saying goodbye is one thing, while going home is another, especially when you’ve spent four years acclimating to a different culture.

“People change throughout these years: I feel like I have changed. I still feel at home in Ecuador, but I do feel like I have a different view in a way and you do get adapted to the lifestyle here,” said Mantilla.

“We came here when we were still teenagers and that’s the time when your ideas and your perspectives change a lot, so when I go back home sometimes I don’t have the same views as my friends,” said Peiris. “And  I have to be very careful not to offend anybody, with the way I dress and the way I talk with people. It’s going to be a challenge.”

Nanda is happy to be heading home, but the transition from Walla Walla, and more specifically the Whitman campus, to Yangon is a pretty dramatic one.

“You see that really stark difference; having to wage your life on your beliefs: and there’s the chance that your life could go very wrong because of certain beliefs you hold: and here it’s a totally different environment. . . not that the States are perfect, but it’s different in college.”