Academic and Social Adjustment Challenges Faced By Students of North-Indian Origin Studying In Colleges of Tamil Nadu

Adapting to the environment of a new city can be difficult, especially if the culture of the city is different from the culture that a student is accustomed to. A lot of studies regarding the adjustment of international students have been done in universities of USA, Russia, etc. India, however, is unique as it has cultural differences even among its different states. Inspired by these cultural differences, we aimed at exploring the academic and social adjustment challenges faced by newcomers of North-Indian origin (students who have come for undergraduate education) in colleges of Tamil Nadu. For this, we carried out a comparative study on acclimatisation on students of North-Indian origin who have stayed in Tamil Nadu for less than 5 years (group 1), and students of North-Indian origin settled in Tamil Nadu for at least 12 years (group 2), to see if the duration of stay plays a role in adjustment. A total of 70 undergraduate students (18-22 years) responded to a questionnaire which measured academic and social adjustment in college. It consisted of 19 items formulated by us. We analysed these responses on aspects of social exclusion, language barriers, perceived cultural discrimination, difficulty in expressing oneself in the classroom and difficulties in academics. We then used percentage analysis to compare the findings of the two groups. The results revealed that in aspects of language barriers, perceived cultural discrimination and difficulty in expressing oneself in the classroom, group 1 had a higher percentage of adjustment issues. We hence concluded that these were the major areas where the newcomers of North-Indian origin faced adjustment challenges in the colleges of Tamil Nadu.