Student Visa

Foreign students get Football 101 lesson in Melbourne, FloridaDozens of foreign students at Florida Tech from around the globe participated in a school-sponsored crash course on American football recently. The students put on bulky helmets and shoulder pads, tried to throw the football accurately and asked players about the basic skills of the game.To let foreign students get Football 101 lesson, Georgia Tech hosted an “International Football Clinic” in April. Similar events take place at other USA colleges like the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt, Rice, Colorado State and elsewhere.Florida Tech’s international student population has skyrocketed 60 percent since 2008. Scholars from 118 countries accounted for 1,327 of the college’s 4,043 undergraduate and graduate students last fall, the most recent statistics available.Florida Tech’s athletic director Bill Jurgens, introduces a group of international students to members of the football team at a barbecue with some of the football team to try to get them excited about the season.So the excitement felt by domestic alumni about the Panthers’ inaugural football team, which debuts Saturday, is not as high among international visa students because they don’t know much about football yet.“It’s so foreign to them, they aren’t really sure. They really don’t have a clue what it is. To most of them, football is soccer,” said Linda “Mom” Condon, who’s spent the past decade hosting foreign students via the International Friendship Program.“They call soccer ‘football.’ So, it’s a sport that’s kind of uniquely American. So they’re interested — but they haven’t got a clue what it is,” Condon said, laughing.During the “Football 101″ barbecue for international students, the athletics director assured attendees that no one would suffer injuries during the outdoor football exhibition.Gengbo Liu is a Chinese graduate student studying biomedical engineering. He remembers watching Madonna’s halftime show during the 2012 Super Bowl — but he confessed he was clueless about the New York Giants beating the New England Patriots, 21-17, in the actual game.Liu asked Florida Tech football players whether the quarterback was allowed to hide the ball behind his body to try to fake out would-be tacklers. The players replied yes.Mohammed Al Habsi, a freshman software engineering major from Oman, said he had only seen two football games on television — “I don’t know the rules or anything.”Vaibhav Saxena is an Indian graduate student studying electrical engineering. Yelling, “My turn! My turn!” he got laced up in shoulder pads by Panthers tight end Daniel De Paz (6-3 inches, 230 pounds) and offensive lineman Trey Lewis (6-3, 300 pounds).Saxena then posed for photos, grinning and flashing thumbs-up to his friends.“It was really cool. It was really exciting,” he said. “I would love the chance to play with them — but they are too big.”Go USA!- MikeAll information presented here is from my personal research and my attempts to save you time and money when pursuing your dream of coming to the USA to study. Do not take any of this information as LEGAL advice – I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV. This information is gathered from a variety of sources including many U.S. Government websites and I urge you to validate this information as much as possible, just as I do when posting on this blog. This post was found originally on USA Today. Share this:Google+ Mike WardLike this:Like Loading...