Hannah Stevens, a fourth-year in fashion and textile management, and Sophie Rutkowski, a third-year in business administration, laugh before posing for a photo with their matching skirts during the tailgate at the fairgrounds lot outside of Carter-Finley Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023. Students were tailgating for the football game against VMI." />
Hallie Walker
Hannah Stevens, a fourth-year in fashion and textile management, and Sophie Rutkowski, a third-year in business administration, laugh before posing for a photo with their matching skirts during the tailgate at the fairgrounds lot outside of Carter-Finley Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023. Students were tailgating for the football game against VMI.
Every year, NC State welcomes over 4,800 international students from 120 different countries to live and study in Raleigh.
Coming from different cultural backgrounds, international students might not be familiar with certain American habits or values, such as the strong solidarity and school spirit that connects NC State students.
Joshua Asomah, a fourth-year exchange student studying business management, said the school spirit at his home university in Germany cannot compare to NC State’s.
“When I think about the school spirit at my home university, I have to say that school spirit is kind of non-existent,” Asomah said. “While here, they’re really all part of the Pack and they have this big school spirit.”
Asomah also said when he first experienced NC State’s strong school pride, it was uncharted territory for him.
“To be honest, I was a little overwhelmed because I didn’t experience anything like that in my home university,” Asomah said. “At first I thought it was kind of sketchy, but then it got to me. I would actually love to have such a [similar] vibe at my home university.”
Differences in culture also play an important role in the ways school spirit is expressed at NC State and abroad.
Eunah Cho, a fourth-year exchange student studying political science from Seoul, South Korea, said NC State school spirit is competitive.
“Here, everybody is all about NC State, so students are very focused on their own university, and when they interact with other universities it’s to compete,” Cho said. “At my school, we’re more close-knitted with other schools. We organize festivals with other universities and set up clubs that all students can join, regardless of where they study.”
Erik Rodriguez, a fourth-year studying business administration at NC State who studied abroad at Vienna University of Business and Economics in Austria, said university branding seems more ubiquitous in Raleigh than when he studied in Austria.
“Here, everywhere you go, you will see people wearing NC State clothes with the logo on it,” Rodriguez said. “You see it everywhere on campus, even on the buildings.”
Both Rodriguez and Asomah said the differences in school spirit between international universities and NC State became especially evident at sports events.
“We have sports clubs at my home university in Germany … and we can watch their games, but the football games here at NC State, that’s a whole new dimension,” Asomah said. “It can’t be compared to our sports clubs and games.”
Rodriguez said at Vienna University of Business and Economics, which is abbreviated to WU, the sports scene is different.
“WU has an American football team, the ‘WU Tigers,’ but it’s nowhere near the same sort of energy that the NC State football team has,” Rodriguez said. “I didn’t meet many students at WU who cared much for the football team, and plenty of them didn’t even know it existed.”
For more information on upcoming study abroad opportunities, visit the Study Abroad website.