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Ana Barros Shares the Challenges of Being an International Student

Business and Communication • 2024

Those who know Bluefield University student Ana Barros say she is a great example of a young woman. While just 18 years old, she came alone from Brazil to live in the United States to pursue her college education. The experience, she admits, has been challenging with academic pressure, cultural shock, feeling alone, being far away from home, and a completely new weather environment.

Born and raised in Goias, Brazil, Barros attended Teo High School, where she loved to serve in her church youth group and lead her high school friends to a relationship with Christ.

Now a senior at Bluefield University, Barros is involved in the Music Department, the Student Ministry team, Student Development as a resident assistant, and the Admissions Office as a student worker. Here, she uses her passion for Jesus, music and family to grow her faith, to spread the gospel, and to ensure everyone around her is smiling. She spoke about the details that brought her to Bluefield.

“There was a company called Liason America that offered exchange programs to the U.S.,” Barros said. “They would have us visit various colleges to decide the ones we would like to apply for. I got a scholarship to go to that program, and during my stay at Bluefield College at the time, Dr. Olive awarded me with an international scholarship.”

She said her first year in Bluefield was difficult. It was exciting, she added, but at the same time challenging because she was away from her family and church, and she needed to adapt to a small town.

“The biggest culture shock is that you flush toilet paper in the U.S.,” Barros said jokingly. “Also, fast food is so cheap.”

Barros said her college career has been a bit “crazy” as she’s tried to determine what she wanted her major to be.

“I am a music major with a concentration in voice,” Barros said. “My college career has been intense as I changed majors twice. I started as a double major in music and pre-med, then became music education, and now I am in general music with a concentration in voice.”

Barros will graduate in the spring of 2023. After that, she hopes to be a music teacher in a music academy. Her classmates say she is a great example of not only a student, but a Christian for the entire Bluefield community. Barros finds her motivation from that kind of influence in a quote from the late Cliff Barrows, a longtime music and program director for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

“I have had no greater joy than encouraging people to sing. Every great move of the Spirit of God has been accompanied by singing. I believe it will always be so.”

Cliff Barrows

Photo by student Rampage photographer Nathan LePere.

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