[ti:On-campus Violence Concerns Some International Students, Not Others]
[al:Education Report]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2023-04-02]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]Gun violence can happen anywhere in the United States.
[00:04.19]It can happen at a school for children, a holiday parade or a food store.
[00:11.20]It can also happen on college campuses.
[00:15.13]In February, a gunman came onto the grounds of Michigan State University and killed three people and hurt five others.
[00:26.69]Last November, three University of Virginia students were killed by a classmate as they returned from a group trip to Washington, D.C.
[00:38.51]Different kinds of violence can also strike universities.
[00:44.29]Last autumn, someone with a knife killed four students from the University of Idaho as they slept in their home near the school.
[00:55.15]Investigators are still working on the case in Idaho. 
[01:00.21]In Michigan, the man who shot the students later killed himself. 
[01:06.26]In Virginia, police arrested the student who shot his classmates.
[01:12.62]There have been nine mass shootings at or around American colleges since 1966. 
[01:23.22]That information comes from the Violence Project . 
[01:28.69]The group defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are murdered in public in a single incident.
[01:41.14]The deadliest was at Virginia Tech in 2007.
[01:47.04]In that attack, a student killed 32 people and wounded 17 others.
[01:57.17]Fifteen years later, some laws and rules have been changed, but shootings still happen.
[02:07.02]How does the risk of such violence affect international students coming to the United States? 
[02:16.36]And how does it affect the people whose job it is to recruit such students?
[02:24.09]VOA Learning English spoke with two international students and a member of one university's international programs team to find out.
[02:39.07]Beau Benson recruits international students at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. 
[02:50.23]The university has one of the largest populations of international students in the country.
[02:57.74]After a shooting like the one at Michigan State, Benson said, people thinking about coming to the U.S. for their studies have more questions about safety.
[03:10.63]Benson said worried parents ask: "Will my son or daughter be safe if I send them halfway around the world?"
[03:22.33]Benson notes, however, that the questions change depending on news events and international politics. 
[03:32.78]Earlier in his career, international students and their parents were more worried about feeling welcome in the U.S.
[03:43.07]"And it's really in the last few weeks or months, I would say, that the whole topic of gun violence has come up again."
[03:51.14]Kartik Sundaram and Khushi Agnish are both from India. 
[03:57.23]They currently are in school or work on college campuses in the United States.
[04:03.90]Sundaram studies the behavior of internet users at the University of Michigan.
[04:11.83]Agnish recently finished her studies at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. 
[04:18.50]She now works as a researcher at Yale University.
[04:22.70]Sundaram lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
[04:28.29]That is about 100 kilometers from the Michigan State University campus.
[04:35.71]He called the Michigan State shooting "tragic."
[04:41.64]"But it's kind of out of our control," he added.
[04:46.21]"There's nothing really I can do about it and there's no point in wasting my mental resources thinking about it."
[04:56.84]Sundaram said that if a person with a gun did come to his classroom, "then I'm dead."
[05:05.79]Agnish has experience at two American universities.
[05:12.14]She said the environment at Quinnipiac is very different than the one at Yale even though they are only 15 minutes apart.
[05:25.07]Yale is in the city of New Haven and people can walk onto the campus without much trouble. 
[05:33.99]Quinnipiac, on the other hand, is in the suburban city of Hamden. 
[05:41.11]It is next to a large state park and separated from homes and business areas. 
[05:49.71]She said anyone who drives a car must show their school identification card in order to enter the campus.
[06:01.15]At Yale, people need a student card to enter buildings.
[06:08.15]Agnish said she worries about crime and sometimes feels less safe in New Haven than she did in India.
[06:19.11]"A lot of people know that India is not considered a very safe country. 
[06:24.59]But to be honest, living in New Haven made me feel a bit like maybe I was safer back home.
[06:30.39]And I would say that because in India, the most that would happen is I could get kidnapped or something, right?
[06:37.96]Like someone could just pick me up, take me ,hold me hostage or something.
[06:42.25]"But in America I fear sometimes someone might just shoot me."
[06:48.02]Agnish said sometimes she worries she could be a target because of her skin color.
[06:56.71]"There's a constant fear - because of the gun laws in this country - that if someone gets mad at you, they can just shoot you," she said.
[07:09.24]Both the students and Benson, the recruiter, are unsure if the recent violence at American universities will make future students consider higher education in countries other than the U.S.
[07:26.12]Sundaram said he believes the benefit of studying in the U.S. outweighs the risk.
[07:34.67]"The opportunity to make much more money was the dominant factor," he added.
[07:43.08]Benson, however, worries that some international students may be turned off by the violence and the high cost of attending school in the United States.
[07:54.82]Universities in places like Canada, Australia and Northern Europe are considered safer and usually have a lower cost of attendance. 
[08:08.15]He tells students that Boston is a safe place for international students and that Northeastern works hard to keep its campus safe.
[08:18.94]For Agnish, she said she only really learned about gun violence in America during her first year in the U.S. 
[08:29.17]She said such events were not talked about much in the news in India.
[08:35.86]So, when she was considering coming to the U.S. for school, she did not think much about her safety.
[08:44.40]But, Agnish said, "If I was asked now, I might think twice before making a decision."
[08:54.17]I'm Dan Friedell. And I'm Dorothy.