A major difference between South Africa and the United States, for Rose Smouse, is the schools.

“I think the professors are more welcoming. In all the classes that you go to they say if you have any problem to just come in and see me,” she said. “You know they really take time to listen.”

But another difference about studying here compared to South Africa was one of a racial issue.

“You don't think that if you do bad it's because of your color. You think you did bad because you didn't do hard enough,” she said. “So that's not the first thing that crosses your mind when you say, 'Ah, I got a B.' It's not like, ‘Oh, I got it because I'm black,’ and that's usually what one thinks of in South Africa.”

Her desire to study linguistics comes from her love for languages, she said.

“I love languages, you see, I have a nice book collection of African languages, even though I don't speak all of them, Smouse said. “But, I like working with languages. In South Africa there are nine official languages."

Although, according to the South African Languages Web site, there are 11 official languages, including Afrikaans, English, IsiNdebele, IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Northern Sotho (Sepedi), Sesotho, Setswana, SiSwati, Tshivenda and Xitsonga.