Naomi Chen is a current exchange student at the University of Oregon. She has been studying at UO since Fall Term 2015 and is very involved in campus activities.

Before I came here, I contacted my schoolmate Connie who also came to U of O as an exchange student. It was the first time I went to America so there were a lot of things I didn’t know. We tried to search for a lot of information before we came here. We found that there is a TWSA group on Facebook. We were so excited and they had the orientation in August.

Before the orientation, I encountered the rental contract problem. I e-mailed the Duck Village’s leasing office; they always ignored my question and did not reply to me for almost half a month. I was really worried. I messaged Linda who is the president of TWSA. She told me how to solve the problem and gave me many suggestions. It felt heart-warming.

During the TWSA orientation, we got one brochure that included a lot of traffic, food, market and school information. It helped me a lot and made me not so anxious. I really appreciated that TWSA made a lot of efforts for the new students. If you had any problem, you could just post your problem on the TWSA Facebook club page. There were a lot of schoolmates who were willing to answer your questions. It was really nice.

Because I accepted so much help from TWSA, I hope I can give them some feedback. At the BBQ event, I invited many friends to come and promote our event at the table. During Taiwan Night, I knew lots of committees were too busy to finish their work. I helped them to make some banners and thought about some attracting articles to appeal more people to come to Taiwan Night. We posted the article on Facebook and the Wechat channel. We faced some problems because our article has the national flag of Taiwan. Some of the Chinese students are really sensitive about politics; they asked Oregon life association, who helped us promote our event to stop helping TWSA. This is the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen. We reported to school and fortunately the school gave us a lot of support. We also sold out our Taiwan Night tickets. Everybody who came to Taiwan Night all had fabulous memories.

I really like it here because we have a very friendly international office. If you have any problem, they will try to help you as soon as possible. Your advisor also will give you many suggestions. Don’t be shy to ask for help; there are many resources waiting for you. Not only TWSA and the International office, but the International Student Association can help you a lot and give you a lot of fabulous m
emories at the U of O. Enjoy your life and school here and go Ducks!