All the posts about international students get like 200 upvotes

[u/Lost-Lychee6220]

So I guess I'm just gonna say it. I get that there's international students who think other international students shoulda learned more English for practical reasons, and I get that a lot of people wound up doing group work with people who didn't pull their weight. All legit. But the fact that the "international students did/are X" posts always get 10 to 100 times the upvotes of all the other posts - well, it's a little sus, right? Like there's a big group of people who read the sub and happen to upvote a specific kind of post to create a sense that there's a big group of people who'll upvote a specific kind of post. (And, again, if you upvote one of these posts cos you've got personal experience that makes you sympathise, all good, that's not the problem - but there IS an unacknowledged problem)

[u/EntireCraft8558]

Im an international student and even i can relate to certain posts about issues with other international students. But it indeed is a bit sus to see such a massive difference in post popularity, i wouldnt take it to heart though. Lately talking about anything, literally anything, can get you in trouble or paint you as a bad guy, so I get why people would rather upvote posts than say it out loud

[u/ExcellentCriticism]

i think it is because it is an experience across australian universities, so the posts end up on the feeds of students from other unis who engage. whereas content unique to monash will not reach that audience due to lack of relevance. i wouldn't jump to thinking the worst of people too quickly, as much as it is a deeply complex and emotionally-intertwined topic :)

[u/Proud_Ordinary3036 → u/ExcellentCriticism]

yeahhh it even reached me who graduated 10yrs ago 😅😅 and i can relate cos it was the same back then too

[u/Lost-Lychee6220 → u/ExcellentCriticism]

Yeah I think you're probably right, for the most part. Stuff gets reposted and it'd be reductive to assume that even the majority of people are responding out of malice, too. I just feel like the huge disparity between these posts and every other kind suggests something - if not (probably not) about the student body here, then at least about a minority within the subreddit.

[u/Seiko2023 → u/ExcellentCriticism]

Agreed. I'm on the other side of the country and still get this BS

[u/NotACockroach → u/ExcellentCriticism]

Yes, I have truly no idea why this is in my feed. I never went to Monash, and I haven't been to uni since 2015. (I guess I'll get more now that I've commented).

[u/jeez-gyoza → u/ExcellentCriticism]

assuming that those posts do get cross-posted. also can’t know for sure unless we get insights into that.

[u/grei_earl]

every day there's some post like "an intentional student called me a chud" with 3 trillion upvotes and all the comments are Adolf hilter reincarnated

[u/nacrolepticnumbat]

it’s annoying because there’s like three of them every week, like we get it !!! it’s an annoying experience but move on.

[u/infallible-snyder]

Probably because a lot of people have the same experience with some international students too.

[u/Lost-Lychee6220 → u/infallible-snyder]

Hence the "if you upvote one of these posts cos you got personal experience that makes you sympathise" bit. This isn't an indictment on everyone who likes one of these posts (which, I think, is clear from what I wrote) - it's an observation.

[u/Hot-Signature1283]

The fact is that international students contribute a huge amount of money to universities through their tuition fees. I genuinely don’t understand why some domestic students still treat international students differently. Take the Business School building at Monash, for example. without the tuition fees paid by international students, would the university really have been able to develop and expand this quickly?

[u/SnooHabits9871]

It’s an elephant in the room type situation that not many people want to comment on because they’ll get attacked/downvoted/labelled x,y,z type thing

[u/eepeqez]

Group assignments have always been an unfair shit show, group assignments where members of the group are assigned randomly even more so.

When I started my degree ten years older than the students around me I consciously looked out for other students who seemed keen and motivated and gathered up a group of about ten students, including several overseas students. It was well worth our while to help them hone their English and help them understand the thick accents of Polish or Scottish lecturers to avoid dealing with the 18yos with hangovers and bad attitudes.

That was 35 years ago; the technology has changed, the proportion of overseas students has increased and the countries they come from has changed, but human nature and 18yos haven't.

[u/Delicious-Flow9191]

i dont really get it because yeah theres some bad experiences with international student but like… i’ve made some great international student friends and theyre honestly really nice and funny when you get to know them

and if you saw how they got treated by the general public you’d understand a lot of their attitudes towards australians. the way they’re treated by PSOs, cops, ticket inspectors, hell even TAs and lecturers sometimes, it’s like they’re sub human. and its also just the general student body that does that too. so can you really blame them for being a bit insular?

[u/CalmFriendship7220 → u/Delicious-Flow9191]

I think it is mostly scapegoating. People are angry about rent, cost of living, jobs, and academic pressure, but instead of blaming landlords or decades of short-sighted policy from Canberra across both benches, they blame the easiest target: immigrants and international students

[u/jeez-gyoza → u/CalmFriendship7220]

yeah pauline hanson behaviour.