For many of us, the biggest worries at college are the due dates of research papers, how to get some extra cash for the weekend, or maybe why our roommate keeps avoiding those post-it notes left on the bathroom mirror.

But for some international students, crises back home weighs on their minds and hearts as they try to bury their worries and focus on their studies. Whether they’re attending traditional college or earning a degree online, international students can be bombarded with thoughts of their families and friends back home.

Take a student like Soe Thi Ha who attends a university in Lehigh Valley, Penn. Soe Thi somehow made his way from Burma (Myanmar) to western PA – can you imagine trying to focus on your studies when your home town has been pummeled by a cyclone?

Or Xiadi Liu, a Chinese university student who lives in Wisconsin and couldn’t reach his family who live less than an hour from Chengdu. Like many of the Chinese within the country after the earthquake, Xiadi was finally able to reach his family through text messaging, even while the phone lines continued to be busy for several more days.

Some students use their newfound U.S. voices to take action and bring attention to their country’s troubles. Stephanie Nyombayir experienced the agony of losing 100 family members to murder in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. As a university student in Pennsylvania, she now uses her personal experiences to bring attention to the thousands of refugees from the civil way in Sudan. Along with several other university students, her work was featured in an MTV documentary.

Puts freaking out over that mid-term in a little better perspective…