Monica Nastase traveled about 5,300 miles from her hometown, Galati, Romania, to Johnson City to attend graduate classes at East Tennessee State University. Nastase arrived in the states six months ago without her family or her boyfriend, Ciprian, and with the ambition to grow as a student and as a young professional.
She says her decision to move to the United States from her native country, Romania, was something she chose to do because of the valuable work experience she needed in order for her career to be what she wanted.
Before Nastase could come to the United States, she had to prepare.
“I believe that in this whole process of coming to study in USA, getting a visa was the most difficult issue,” Nastase says. “You have to apply months before you are scheduled for an interview with a visa counselor, and they could even schedule you after the program starts at the university. You then spend a whole day in front of the U.S. embassy waiting to be called for the interview.
They don’t let you stay inside the embassy building, not even on the same sidewalk,” she says. “Everybody had to stay outside of the U.S. embassy premises, and on the other side of the street. For instance, I was scheduled to appear at interview at 8:10 a.m., and I was let in to speak to the counselor at 11:20 a.m. But you could spend even more time on the sidewalk waiting, and you can’t leave to buy a bottle of water or a sandwich, because if they call you and you do not respond immediately, your appointment is lost, and you have to reschedule again, pay the fees again, and wait again for two or three months.”
“The worst part is that even if you have all the paperwork in good shape they could refuse to give you a visa based on their own judgment,” Nastase says. “Basically you are humiliated and made to feel like you are nothing and nobody, who wants to go up the scale and reach this wonder-place called USA.
I realize that most of these issues have appeared once the war in Iraq and the enemies USA has made because of this.”
“It’s better to regret that you did something than to regret that you didn’t do it,” says Nastase, a 23-year old public relations student at ETSU.
Nastase says she felt like the journalism degree she earned at West University Timisoara, Romania, just outside her hometown was mostly theory-based. She wanted a more “hands on” experience in the field of public relations and advertising.
That need for experience has brought Nastase for her master’s degree at ETSU.
“I wanted to do a master’s overseas in a better academic atmosphere than the one I was in, especially with more practice than theory,” she says.
Nastase can usually be found on campus where she lives and works. Life without access to a car is one of the many challenges Nastase faces in this new country. Getting a bank account and getting around in an unfamiliar city are additional issues Nastase faces, unlike more traditional challenges for students born here.
She says Johnson City is not as busy as she thought it would be. Houses are not close together and people aren’t walking on the streets. “It’s a good city to study,” she says.
Nastase is used to a much different landscape than the Appalachians.
“My hometown, Galati, is situated in the easternmost part of Romania,” Nastase says. “It is a town in the plains, crossed by the Danube, the second largest river in Europe. The Danube rises from Germany, crosses nine countries until reaching Romania, and we are proud to say that it empties into the Black Sea in Romania.
Before emptying into the Black Sea, the Danube crosses my hometown, and actually the block of flats that my parents live in is just on the Danube shore in Galati.”
Homesickness has started to set in on Nastase, she says. She misses her family and her boyfriend.
“My boyfriend hopes to come here next year,” Nastase says. “He has applied for several universities around this area, and hopefully he will be admitted in one of them. His name is Ciprian, a name rather difficult for English speaking people because there is no equivalent. The etymology of his name is this: It comes from the island of Cyprus, in the Mediterranean, and Ciprian means ‘man from Cyprus.'”
“It wasn’t hard to come without him because we are not tied to one another with a rope. We don’t have to have the same experiences in our two lives. It is even better like this, because I have wonderful experiences here, and he has good ones there. And when we eventually meet, we will both benefit and rejoice of the other’s stories and growth,” she says.
But her relief has been through other international students, whom she has met at student meetings on campus and outings. Most of her new friends are from Spain, France, Germany, Romania and Israel, she says.
Nastase’s group has found ways to spend their spare time together off campus. Recreational activities such as kayaking are a nice way to see the area and to become better friends. Nastase recently went on a kayaking trip with her friends to North Carolina.
Living in an unfamiliar place, learning a profession through different teaching methods and finding friends are why Nastase came to the United States.
She wanted to learn a profession through a different method of education than she was used to.
Nastase has found exactly what she was looking for at ETSU.

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