International Students Say The Internet Helps Them Save Money on Calls Home

When first-year Nina W. Kang realised she would be leaving Taiwan to attend Harvard, it seemed she would have to abandon her dinnertime ritual of sharing the day's events with her family. Calling home, Kang says, is an expensive affair.

"It costs about US$15 for 10 minutes," Kang says.

Immediately after her graduation from Taiwan American School, Kang's parents subscribed to Compuserve, a global online service. Now, Kang says she "talks" to her parents twice a day over the Internet.

"They e-mail me and I e-mail them and we talk about how our day went," says Kang.

For many international students at Harvard, the Internet is a quick and convenient means of staying in touch with far away family and friends. Maintaining contact with scattered pals is simpler in cyberspace, where costly postage and long distance service are not at issue, say several undergraduates.

"It's definitely easier to keep in touch--[e-mail] is free, and it's fast; airmail takes a week at least," says Indonesian student Michael Sosanto '95, who regularly e-mails his friends from junior high.

"There's no way to afford phone calls to my friends," says Zimran D. Ahmed '98, who e-mails his high school friends from Dubai college in the United Arab Emirates several times a week.

"Some of them are in universities in the U.S. and some are in the U.K.," he says.

"E-mail is cheaper, you don't need to get stamps or envelopes," Ahmed adds.

"It's also quick. When you write a letter there's sometimes more room so you have to fill it up and spend more time. With e-mail, you can just dash off a couple of lines and send it off," Ahmed says.

A New World of Communication

Internet users at Harvard say communications technology is growing by leaps and bounds. Although access to the net is available free to Harvard's users, those outside of the University community wishing to access the net may have to subscribe to an Internet provider.

"Using the Internet is causing a whole new way of thinking about the cost of communication," say Jeff C. Tarr '96, co-president of Digitas, a Harvard student computer organization.

Internet users in other countries say the cost of subscribing to an Internet provider is hardly prohibitive.

Peeter Rebane '95 says his borther in Estonia pays about $70 U.S. dollars or $700 Estonian kronas each month for access through an institute of cybernetics.

"It's definitely much better [than long distance calling," Rebane says.

Business and Pleasure

For Rebane, e-mail is a cost-effective way of communicating with his borther. Rebane and his brother co-manage the Baltic Development Group, a company the two founded together in 1993.

"We actually work together on several projects in Estonia related to the entertainment business--we're involved in marketing cinemas, casinos and nightclubs," says Rebane, former president of the Harvard Baltic Relations council.

"Mostly I help with major day-to-day decisions, so it's necessary to stay in touch. Last year I used to fax and phone, and it cost a couple of hundred dollars a month."

Of course, Rebane admits that the cost effectiveness of e-mail is no substitute for an actual presence in business dealings. Rebane says the cost of a plane ticket home can easily eat up his savings on long-distance calls.

For Harvard students without business connections abroad, e-mail is still a sensible way to stay in close contact with far away friends.

Boston native William G. Ferullo '96, whose girlfriend Marta R. Weiss '96 will be in Nepal this spring, says he was motivated to obtain an e-mail account so that he can keep in touch with her easily and affordably.

"She's going to be in Nepal in a couple of weeks, so I'm trying to set up my e-mail account," Ferullo says.

Weiss is taking advantage of the increasing commercialization of the Internet to contact friends here in the United States, Ferullo says.

"Marta is going to be teaching at a school there," he says. "They don't have e-mail at the school, but they have it at a shopping mall in Katmandu. So she's been trying to find out how she can get an e-mail account at the shopping mall."

Ferullo, who spent last semester studying at a Paris program where Internet access was not available, says he will be glad to avoid long distance bill by using e-mail.

"It would be very expensive and just kind of inconvenient, in terms of timing, to be calling her," Ferullo adds.

Reach Out and Touch Someone?

However, despite the advantages of using e-mail--speed, nominal cost, and convenience--several students say letter-writing is more satisfying.

"I don't think e-mail can replace regular mail," says Angela W. Pan '97, a Taiwanese student who uses e-mail to communicate with her parents in Taiwan and with her friends in the U.S., Europe, Hong Kong and Australia. "But [air] mail is more meaningful.

Pan says she misses the physical qualities of a letter when she reads a message on her computer.

"I think it's a feeling," Pan adds. "When you sit down and write, you put some part of yourself in it, like in the quality of the paper. There's the appeal of receiving a letter, [of] having something in your hand."

Other students say they are concerned about the privacy of electronically-transmitted messages.

"I think writing letters is a lot more personal," says Greek student Natasha Covas '96, who says she regularly e-mails her friends in England and Greece. "And it's a lot more private--people can get into your e-mail account if they have your password, and read your mail."

Iraklis Kourtidis '96, an Eliot House resident born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece, says a definite disadvantage of the Internet is that "too much information is available."

"You can see if a person has been where he or she shouldn't be," Kourtidis says.

Meeting Someone New

With a multinational pool of Internet users communicating in cyberspace, student say it is always possible to make a new friend.

In a textbook example of the "small world" phenomenon, Charles A. Peterson '96 discovered that a stranger who sent him a message over the Internet Relay Channel (IRC) shared a friend in common with him.

"I was on the computer one day waiting for one of my friends to log on," says Peterson, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Mexico who attended high school in Florida, but spent his summers in Mexico.

"I got beeped, so I checked my computer. Somebody I did not know started a conversation. He read my "who is" message, which was in Spanish, and decided to beep me."

Peterson says the stranger turned into a good friend, with who he talks regularly on the Internet.

"He turned out to be a friend of a friend of mine from Mexico. We reminisced abut Mexico and talked for well over two hours. There was so much to talk about--he was a Political Science concentrator at Georgetown, I'm a Government concentrator. It was cool, we got to be friends," Peterson says. "Now he's going to come up in a couple of weeks to visit me."

All the News...Before It Is Printed

The wealth of information accessible via the electronic autobahn is one reason why many international students say it is an indispensable resource for keeping track of goings-on at home.

Pawel Dobrowolski'95, a Polish student who attended high school in Australia, says he subscribes to two daily newspapers from Poland over e-mail: the Gazetta and the Donosy.

"It's very convenient," Dobrowolski says. "I used to go to the Widener on Saturday mornings and spend a couple of hours reading the paper. But there was a two-week backlog; they weren't up-to-date. Now I get news on time."

Indeed, certain electronic newspapers are sent out before their more traditional printed counterparts.

"I am on the mailing list where I get news from Greece," Kourtidis says.

"The e-mail paper, cosmos, is from a real newspaper--Eleftherotypia. The interesting thing is, I get news 12 hours before the real paper is published," he adds.

For Pakistani student Hasnain Aslam '96, an Engineering and Economics concentrator living in adams House, the Internet provides specialized sports coverage.

"Cricket is a sport that's very popular in Pakistan, but there's no news available here. When I want to follow an important match, I log onto the IRC and get a running commentary."

Indeed, the broad spectrum of subject-specific information accessible over the Internet makes it a productive research resource, say several students.

Dobrowolski says he used the Internet to compile information for a research paper he had to write.

"I had to do a paper on Competition and Telecoms for an economics class at the Sloan School at MIT," Dobrowolski says. "On a daily basis, I read three news groups devoted to telecoms. It was definitely useful, I couldn't have done my paper without it."

And Kourtidis says the Internet was a valuable research aid for his independent study project on medical imaging.

"The advantage of using the Internet is that you can find things you want really fast," he says. "I didn't have to go to a library at say MIT to get slides or graphic images presented at a medical conference, for example."

No Place Like Home

For some homesick international students, the Internet is a readily-accessible forum for discussing occurrences abroad.

"The IRC has thousands of interactive channels," says Slovenian student and Dunster House resident Andre Benedejcic '95. Benedejcic says he made many-friends--and even met his present girlfriend--over the Internet.

"There's a Dutch channel, a Russian channel, a Serbain channel...it's very useful if you are homesick, and a good source of stress relief."

Benedejcic says he sometimes participates in "flame wars" over the IRC, which is an interactive war, much like "having an argument with somebody, but he or she cannot physically strike you when you get abusive," Benedejcic says.

The apparent invisibility of on-line users who participate in cyberspace discussions may permit greater freedom of expression, says Aslam.

"It's probably easier to speak up when someone can't hear your voice," Aslam says.

Aslam says he once read a derogatory message, posted over the Internet, on ethnic strife in Pakistan, and was moved to reply. He may not have responded, he says, if it had been a "direct confrontation."

"It's kind of strange, but the Internet gives you a little more freedom. I can send stuff I would not have said directly."

Peterson says the Internet may encourage uninhibited self-expression.

"It makes a lot of people more bold, sometimes more callous," Peterson says. "It's like the telephone--if you only talk to someone over the phone, they might give off a certain personality, but then you meet them and they seem like a totally different person."

Maintaining strong ties with family and friends oceans away necessitates an easy-to-use, affordable means of communication; for this reason, e-mail is the most sensible option, according to many international students.

"It's a way to keep in touch with family and people I've known all my life," says Covas, whose parents are in Athens. "I mean, I like it here and I'm happy, but it's not home to me."