An MU graduate is helping international students succeed in school and preparing them for life beyond campus.
Sharon Lee, coordinator for International Students’ Career Services, was a graduate student at MU before she helped create the program in 2005. Lee, who was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the U.S. with her parents at a young age, said the program is very close to her heart.
“Though I’ve worked in many areas of the career center,” Lee said, “I have to say my ISCS experience will always stand out to me.”
After a period of declining international student enrollment in the mid- and late-’90s, the number of students coming to MU from abroad has averaged about 1,400 a year since 2002. In 2005, more than half of those students came from four countries — China, India, South Korea and Taiwan.
The ISCS offers individual career counseling and other services that include workshops on building an American-style resume and improving students’ interviewing skills. Lee said the center’s greatest challenge is reaching the diverse international student community at MU.
“I think the biggest challenge that I face is the fact that I am keen on getting more awareness of our program and events on campus by students, staff, faculty and community members,” she said.
Lee said she was younger than five when her parents came to the U.S and settled in the suburbs of Chicago. She earned a dual bachelor’s degree advertising and psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, then received a master’s from MU in counseling psychology with an emphasis in career counseling in 2003. Lee began working at MU’s Student Career Center in 2004.
The idea to provide additional assistance and counseling to international students was first conceived at the Career Center in 2001.
It wasn’t until Lee and two others at the Center — Hillary Fuhrman, then a career counselor and master’s student in counseling psychology, and Yi-Jiun Lin, a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology — followed through with a group of professors on the initiative that ISCS celebrated its grand opening in early 2005.
“International students have unique career needs, which is why ISCS was started,” Lee said.
“It is both mine and the ISCS’s staff goal to help international students understand American cultural expectations so that they can be successful in their future careers, as well as provide resources to help them be both professionally and academically successful in the U.S.” she said.
The ISCS is funded the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Development and International Affairs & the Student Success Center.
She advises incoming international students at MU to visit the center as soon as they arrive on campus. While they may need practical advice on how to adapt to the cultural and academic challenges of studying in the United States, Lee said students can visit the Career Center for personal reasons as well.
“Know that there is a place to go if you are stressed out,” she said, “and people who will listen and try to help where we can.”