UNVEILING INTERNATIONAL DOCTORAL STUDENTS’ SOCIAL ADAPTATION IN HUNGARY

Abstract

International students who chose Hungary as their study destination must adapt to Hungary’s society. Knowing the social adaptation of international students, especially doctoral students, gave me another perspective on social adaptation in higher education. The study aimed to uncover the social adaptation of international students in Hungary. And to understand how international students adapted to society in Hungary. This study method is qualitative research design, and the instrument of the study was the semi-structured interview. The study also presents descriptive statistics on demographic data. In our sample, there were seven international students who were from Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Uzbekistan, and Iraq. interview and demographic data. The language of the interview was English. This study identified eleven categories in the students’ adaptation. They were personality, the first visited place, the first friend, adaptation types, ways to make acquaintances, time adjustment, challenges in social adaptation, factors in social adaptation, setting social adaptation, self-reflection, and unfamiliar activities or new habits.

Keywords

• culture differences
• international students
• Hungary
• social adaptation