Creating a “Home Away From Home”
One Brazilian student’s journey to excelling at U-M
—By Sabrina Xue
With a bittersweet smile, Lucas Felpi watched the University of Michigan campus become a ghost town as students cycled out for Thanksgiving break. One by one, all of his friends left to go see their families after months of staying at university. However, as the days rolled by and every one of them left, Felpi stayed stagnant. For them, home was a 30-minute car ride away or a 3-hour flight; for him, it was a 10-hour, $500 flight.
The University of Michigan has a population of almost 9,000 international students, but there is little financial aid or scholarships available to them, and few resources to ensure they stay mentally and emotionally healthy during their time in the States. Even students as ambitious and driven as Felpi, a ‘23 alum, have moments of feeling lost and alone, with few to lean on. “It can get really lonely.”
Life in Brazil
Felpi was born and raised in Brazil, attending high school not at an international school, but at a small Brazilian high school, where attending college in America was a rare occurrence. Felpi was resourceful and determined in his journey to come to the University of Michigan. “I had to figure it out myself through talking to person after person,” he said.
Through his research, Felpi was able to get connected with other international students who didn’t have much aid in the process, and from them, was able to get connected with resources within the US such as the University of Michigan International Students Center. While much of it is a blur, Felpi remembers just how difficult the entire process was to navigate. “It was quite confusing and difficult.”
The beginning of YouTube
Following his frustration with the process and merely a year before enrolling at the University of Michigan, Felpi piloted his YouTube channel with the video “Introducao ao Canal | Lucas Felpi.” In this video, he stated his desire to “show you my experience, what it was like, how to help anyone else get into the college of their dreams, show you materials, and more.”
After this first video, his channel rose to success, totaling over half a million subscribers and over 10 million views. Most of these videos were in Portuguese and thus tailored toward students still living in Brazil. After coming to Michigan, his content shifted to feature his Michigan experience as well as general tips for studying, thus appealing to all international students. Felpi’s channel served as a method for him to help mentor others in a process where he had such little help.
Coming to Michigan
Once Felpi finally enrolled and arrived at the University of Michigan, he was pleasantly surprised by some measures taken by the International Student & Scholar Services (ISSS) and less than impressed with others. “They gave us our own personal orientation basically the day before school started to help make sure everyone could make it,” Felpi stated. ISSS also provided socializing groups and meetups to help international students begin to create connections in such a big school. Other international students, such as In Long from Thailand, found those especially helpful. “I found some of my closest friends to this day through that meeting,” Long said.
However, while there was social support immediately upon coming to campus, the same could not be said academically. While domestic students were offered the opportunity to backpack classes early in the summer, international students were not given the same option. “Since we got our orientation so late, we also backpacked the latest, and essentially got last pick for every single class,” Felpi remembers.
Financial inequity
Outside of a lack of academic support, there is also a significant lack of financial support for international students at the University of Michigan. According to the University of Michigan Financial Aid website, while 70% of in-state students and 40% of out-of-state students receive financial aid, international students are not eligible for federal financial aid, and scholarship funding available to them is limited.
Not only is it difficult for international students to receive scholarship aid from the school, but their ability to make money is also significantly affected. On-campus employment is permitted up to 20 hours per week during the school term and full-time during official university vacations and holidays. Off-campus employment is only allowed under specific conditions with prior approval.
Upon further research, Michigan seems to have little to no programs put in place to help counteract these disadvantages that international students such as Felpi and Long face, leaving them to essentially fend for themselves.
Blazing his own path forward
As Felpi continued to navigate his time at the University of Michigan, he began to create communities along the way. Although he didn’t receive much help socially from the school in this regard, Felpi found himself mostly spending time with other international students. “It’s kind of what you get conditioned to do at first, since there’s not as much of a language and culture barrier,” Felpi explained. Long agrees with him in this regard, “I mean who else do you feel more connected with than the people who went through the same troubles you did to get here?”
This is a common situation for many international students, and Felpi wanted to branch out. Without direct resources provided by the school to help bring international and domestic students together, he had to find his path.
Kappa Theta Pi
Kappa Theta Pi, a pre-professional technology fraternity, was Felpi’s first act of stepping out of his comfort zone to find a more diverse social circle. Since childhood, Felpi had a keen interest in computer science, which he continued to pursue at Michigan. He joined KTP with the hope to both develop professionally and academically. However, even Felpi could not have guessed how much his time in KTP would impact his life at Michigan.
After rushing and pledging the fraternity, Felpi felt extremely connected with the people and rose to leadership, becoming a beloved member of the community. Eventually, he served as the president of the fraternity for two years, leaving behind a legacy of coding an entire app—KTPLife—for the fraternity.
“I found many of my closest friends to this day through KTP,” Felpi said.
What now?
Years later, at graduation, Felpi’s list of accomplishments demonstrates the sheer impact he has made in such a short time. From being invited to speak in front of thousands at the university graduation ceremony to interning for multiple Fortune 500 companies, Felpi has undoubtedly created his own home away from home.
Now, back in Brazil, he plans to spend the next few months traveling and exploring the world before hunkering down to work. While he isn’t too sure what the future holds, he’s confident in the fact that studying abroad was one of the best decisions he has ever made. “It was such a wild ride, but also such a good one.”
Feature photo: Lucas Felpi’s graduation speech, by Lucas Felpi