Interview with Sister M: Meri Linn McCollum

By Xinyi Chen, October 19, 2016

    This week, I interviewed Meri Linn McCollum on October 19. Meri Linn is the director of International admission & Immigration Services Operations and Coordinator of Study Abroad, also she is the lecturer in World Language. For every international students, she is a very kind and nice professor and advisor and help us a lot in American college life, even Chinese students called Meri Linn as Sister M. This Thursday I talked with her about her works with International students and the teaching life in Muskingum University, let you know more about Sister M.

      The first question is about the reason that Meri Linn came to Muskingum for teaching. She told me that she was born and grew up in New Concord, after ending up going to school in Northern Ohio, she transferred to school in Florida. Then she moved and started the job in Raleigh, North Carolina. At last, she had opportunity to return here and got a job in register office in Muskingum University.

      Meri Linn has been to a lot of countries and she was an International student in the past, she shared me some experience about studying abroad: In high school she went to Mexica for faculty-student trip, that is the first foreign country she visited in her life; After returning New Concord, Meri Linn visited Germany for four weeks by attending German Language Program, she really enjoyed it, experienced German culture and got big improvement on her German language speaking. “It was amazing!” She commended the trip in Germany. Then she has been to Ireland, Italy, Spain and any other countries. When she talking about foreign language studying, she claimed that: “The only way you really get to know a language in a culture is to go to that country.”

      Next, we started to talk about the language problem that exist in every second language learner when they go to a foreign country or talk with foreigner. Just like us, for Chinese people, because of the very different language systems, language becomes one of the biggest problems in American college life. Meri Linn told me a story she has experienced in her first time Germany trip: At that time, she was with a group and at a train station and looking for the hotel, so they found the information desk in train station and asked for help. Because she asked in German so the staff responded in German, but she wasn’t sure about the answers and the staff repeated it and answered it more slowly and clearly. Meri Linn nodded and smiled to him then led students to find the hotel, but they walked a long time and didn’t find it, so they had to get back to information desk and asked again. Finally, they that the hotel is right across the street. That is the first experience in Germany. From this experience, she finds that people are very nice if you use their language and very forgiving and helpful, so do not worry about that you would make people unhappy when you make mistakes in using second language.

       After these, she said students need to understand that studying abroad is a possibility, many students don’t realize they can study abroad, many of them not even aware that they could benefit for going. Meri Linn gave some suggestion to the students who want to study abroad: Realize you can do it and she can help with that, it is benefit for studying by seeing the outside world and other culture in different place.

 In the interview, Meri Linn told me some difficulties in her work with international students: The cultural misunderstanding and culture shock. She was an international student so she knows the difficulties and challenges for international students when they leave far away from their hometown. Also the lack of cultural knowledge also cause some problem when she first teaches ESL classes. But in these years, she learns from international students about their culture and use the knowledge to help her students, and it helps a lot in getting along with international students.

      In the last question why does she do this job, Meri Linn, our Sister M answered:

      “Because I love languages and cultures, I always have, and I really enjoy getting to meet new students every year, and enjoy watching students come in and they might be a little shy, but watching them become confident and really become a part of University, and four years to watch them graduate, and knowing maybe I help them to feel more comfortable to help them succeed. I get a lot of joy that I have in my job and my life comes from helping other people, and that all the reward I need is to see one of my students to be successful and be happy, have opportunity.”