My residence on the SIUE Edwardsville Campus for the past couple of days brought to mind how a place can greatly influence your daily routine. A recurring question I have is: “Why does life here feel so distant, in terms of its physical distance, from what students actually need?” For someone who has recently moved to this area, primarily for an International Student and is not from the area, it may seem as if everything that is relevant or vital to them, is located just beyond the campus borders.
To provide some context, Edwardsville is a small college town, primarily set up for the automobile and suburban environment. Edwardsville’s main campus is very walkable; however, the majority of the necessities in students’ daily lives (groceries, dining establishments, social areas) are situated away from the campus. Without personal vehicle access, students rely on limited forms of transportation, which may create the perception of living within a confined and repetitive lifestyle. If you were to compare the college town environment to the culture in my home country of Cyprus, where individuals do their daily activities within busy, compact spaces, it may create a sense of isolation.
Understanding the role that space and environment play in creating connection, independence, and well-being is an important consideration when thinking about how to help international college students adjust to life away from home. To better understand the college community and town of Edwardsville and how to continue to improve the experience for international students, it is important to understand how a design can create a better overall experience for all students in a college town environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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My residence on the SIUE Edwardsville Campus for the past couple of days brought to mind how a place can greatly influence your daily routine. A recurring question I have is: “Why does life here feel so distant, in terms of its physical distance, from what students actually need?” For someone who has recently moved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":827,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sb_is_suggestion_mode":false,"_sb_show_suggestion_boards":false,"_sb_show_comment_boards":false,"_sb_suggestion_history":"","_sb_update_block_changes":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-4254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-place","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/827"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4262,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions\/4262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}