Life Guideline -Improving international students’ social integration through design

Abstract: The social integration of international students has always been a much-discussed topic. As more and more students around the world choose to study or exchange abroad, help for the social integration of these international students is being improved. Schools, local and international students and other local student organisations as stakeholders all play different roles in this social integration issue. For schools, more international students help them to gain access to international resources and improve academic standards, thereby improving their international ranking and gaining access to more resources. It can also help local students to gain a broader perspective and improve the quality of local students. As a result, a growing number of initiatives and services are being implemented by schools and student organisations to help international students integrate into their new environment and society, such as buddy programmes, student orientation, new student guidelines and so on. However, not all of these measures and services are well implemented in all schools. This paper examines the different measures and services used to help new international students at Linnaeus University and the effectiveness of these measures for international students and finds that they are not effective in helping to address the problems and social integration of new international students. The designer, therefore, used design methods to analyse and redesign the current measures and services at Linnaeus University by pointing out the problems with the admissions guidelines and buddy program - provided by Linnaeus University and organised by the Student Union. The innovation of the solution is bringing together Linnaeus University and the Students' Union efforts on the social integration of international students. The resources of both parties are integrated to provide better assistance for the social integration of international students.