Demographics: Bangladeshi Male, International Student, PhD Student in Engineering

Tags: Engineering, PhD Student, International

Then last summer, I got a car, which was very cheap, but, when I bought the car I didn't realize it had some problems, and after a week I realized. I had to spend a lot of money on it and I still couldn't fix it. My net worth went into negative, I had a lot of credit card debt. At that time I couldn't even afford my groceries. Like, once or twice, I had to pay a lot of bills there, so one time I accidentally paid everything at once instead of installments, and then that left me with $12 in my account. I was so sad, I saved for a year and now I only had $12. But what I didn't realize, I was actually less broke than the story I shared, because I paid all my credit card bills, so I wasn't in debt, but I had, like, $12. When this was happening, I went on my social media and I put a post that only I could see, and I put, like, "I have $12 in my checking account," and then, yeah, I saw it this year in Facebook memories. I just put it there so that somebody, like, after five or 10 years when I do better in life, I just wanna look back and think about the struggles I had. Someday when I do make it, I'm gonna make it public, like, I have been through this, I had $12 in my account. I just don't wanna show it to people right now because I don't want their pity or I don't want any help from them, I know I'll make it through it, and I just wanna do it by myself because I feel like I haven't accomplished much in my life. I'm in my thirties and I see a lot of people much younger than me and they're doing much better in life than me, so I just don't want anyone's sympathy or pity from other people. I have my own struggle, and sometimes I just don't wanna open up to other people. I didn't want them to know about my struggle, or how broke I was. I didn't wanna show my weakness, I just wanted to put on a brave face, I guess. So, I guess getting the car was what led to all these things. I was spending on the car, and then, after getting the car, two weeks later my advisor told me he's moving here, so I had to decide. I decided two weeks later that okay, I'm gonna move, so I sold the car at a very cheap price, like, one third of the price I bought it for, and then I used that money to move here. I had to buy a plane ticket, I had to find a house, I had to pay the rent. Doing all these things I spent all my savings and then I didn't have enough money. 

I survived, but it was kinda hard. Like, at that time I felt really depressed. I had some problems before coming to the US,  some mental issues, and I kinda struggled. I recovered, but when I had that issue with the car and moving and everything, I felt the lowest in my life in the US.  I've been here for around two years or more, but that was the lowest point in my life around that time.  I knew it was temporary, but at that time I just couldn't convince myself that it's gonna get better.  I knew in my conscious brain that it was gonna get better, but I just couldn't convince myself and I was really depressed at that time.

 Before I transferred to this university, in Oklahoma we used to get a lot of free food there. If I was hungry I could literally walk around the campus and get some sort of free food, but I hardly find that here. So every time I have to dine at some place, I have to pay, because  there is no free food here. When I come to my lab before coming here, I have breakfast, and then, I get hungry during the lunchtime so I have to think where am I gonna go for food? Walking to the dining hall takes 15 minutes to walk there, eat, and come back. So in Oklahoma I was getting free food, but I guess I wasn't saving much or I couldn't afford to eat out a lot, so I was spending more time cooking back then.  I was working less hours that time.I was coming home, and cooking, because I couldn't afford to eat out. I was doing a lot less research back then than what I'm doing right now. I'm spending more on food but I'm probably putting more hours in my research. If I'm not cooking, I have one or two extra hours  every day for my work, but I'm also spending more money. Then, I wanna work until the evening, and then I'm hungry, so I think should I go home or should I stay and work some more? So it's affecting my work. I end up thinking of food or  trading off between work and my lunch or dinner. Sometimes I'm thinking, am I gonna pay, like, $12 or $15 to dine out? So it's between should I go home and cook something, which is gonna save me money, or should I stay, pay some more money to save some time and put some more time in my research. Every day I struggle with this. I always do this trade off in my head.

Since I don't have a car right now I try to use Walmart delivery, so every year I'm paying for their membership payment, and then they deliver it to my house. But the problem I have here is I'm not going to any other supermarket, so I have limited choices. Every time, I'm buying the same groceries and then having the same meal, because I don't have a lot of other options.  I'd love to go to some other markets like a  Chinatown or Indian market, but I don't have the option to go because of the lack of rides. So, I'm cooking the same meal every time, and I do really get tired of the taste every day, so that's why sometimes even if I have the time to cook, I choose not to cook, I'd rather go out to eat because when I eat out, I have a lot of other options, and at home it's always the same food. I just want different options, when I'm cooking at home it's always the same food.  I don't mind food from different cultures, I'm okay with any food, but I just wanna have some varieties in my dishes. Not the same thing over and over. I do get tired of the same taste. It’s just, I love to eat and I don't know, it would just make me feel good. Sometimes when I feel a bit sad, if I have some good food, it makes me happy. When I'm kinda sad for any reason that's going on in my life, it affects my work. I can't just concentrate on work, some days I'll just not come to work because I'm feeling down, so, yeah, I guess it would help somehow to lift up my work if there is good food on my plate. Like, sometimes I would talk to my family back in Bangladesh and they would tell me about all these good dishes they are having, and I'm living on ramen here sometimes because I don't have the time to cook, and it does make me sad. Yeah I just don't show it, but there are so many different dishes that I used to have back in Bangladesh, but I  haven't had those in two years, so sometimes it makes me feel like I wish I could have that. Even if I have the money,  there is no way I can make it or there is no way I can buy the food.

So then I tried to use the University Pantry once, but it was pretty far from my house and walking there would take 30 minutes, and then carrying all those bags of groceries and coming back was really hard, so I have been there only once and I was like, "Oh, I'm never coming back here." Because it's just not worth it spending one hour and then it's so much hard work to just walk. If I was getting a ride from a friend, I would probably go there, but since I don't have a ride, I just choose not to go there. Also, when I went there was a big line in front of the shop. So, I mean, it was really hot that day so we were sweating  under the sun, and then it took 20 minutes because there was a big line. When we went in, a lot of the items were expired, so I probably took one or two items, which wasn't really worth it.  I spent maybe an hour and a half for the whole process, then  I just came back to my lab. Because there were not a lot of options, and most of them were expired, so I took only a few items. Back at my previous university, we had something like this, but they had a lot more options, so every time I would go there with friends, I would have groceries for two weeks, and that would save me $150 or $200 every month. We could go once a month and that would save us a lot. We also had a pantry in the campus for people who couldn't go there, so we could go to the pantry twice a month, and I would get a lot of snacks or some other groceries there. So I was either using that for cooking, or sometimes I would just get snacks from there, so. During the last term, I could just snack on those and then I could go back home and cook something. At the time, I was spending a lot less on food, like some months I had to spend only $200 or less for food.  I don't see those opportunities here, I just end up eating out. Every day for lunch I eat out, and  even for dinner, if I'm working late, I would probably go out again to eat for dinner.  I’m spending, I don't know, $800, $900 maybe per month for food.

At this university, sometimes we would try to go to some of the after hours programs that the school was having to try to get free food, but we cannot go because those are mostly for undergrads, so as grad students, we are not allowed to go participate in undergrad events, and I feel excluded here. To be honest I don't have a sense of belonging here. For the university’s after hours program, it happens a lot there'll be all these cool events and we just don't go there. Sometimes I do wanna go, but even if I go there, I would see, like, all of them are undergrads and not many grad students, and it's just different vibes. That's why I don't go. Even if we are allowed to go there I don't go because I know there'll be a lot of people who are much younger than me or they have their own things going on, and I would feel like an outsider, so I don't go. I feel like I just work here, and I am not a student. That I don't belong in this community, so I just, uh, come to my lab and then work until it gets dark, and yeah, I just don't feel like I, we don't have a social life here. Sometimes I just don't feel like socializing, so I just choose not to go to some events. Along with the community, I feel like some of the employees here are not that friendly, maybe because they have been dealing with undergrads and that's kind of different from grad students than undergrads. So I went to this event where they tell you how to, as a student, what are your responsibilities, and they talk about how you are supposed to take this many credits, this and that, like, all these basic things. And I told them before going there, like, "Hey, I've been in the US for almost two years and I know these things, I'm a transfer student, do I still have to come?" And they said, "Yeah, you have to come, it's mandatory," and I went there, and they were treating us like kids.

All of these issues are unlike in my previous institute where I used to live, I had a sense of belonging, like, we had so many things that would involve all the students. After a year, I really felt like, okay, I belong here, and I would buy their university, sweatshirts or sneakers just to show that I'm a member of this community. I would cheer for their football team or  in different events.  I did have a sense of belonging. However, there is one thing here which is the Grad Student Association, where you have all these grad students, so, yeah, I go there regularly. I see other grad students, and I do belong there because they send us emails and they invite us to events. When I go there, some people would know me or they would, like, truly greet me. It just feels like okay, I belong to this club, but not in other clubs.