Student Stories

Foreign Students in USA – Take Care of your Health and Stay Safe

Words of advise to prospective and students attending colleges in USA. Make every effort to take care of your health and stay safe.

Reason for this post – Distant friend lost his life doing sky diving.

While attending school in USA, you have to explore the places and enjoy the culture. But, make sure you stay safe and it will not harm your health.

Party, Don’t Party Hard

While attending a birthday party, things got out of hands when everyone started throwing cakes at others. Birthday boy got his birthday bumps and face was filled with cake. Then everyone stared applying cake on everyone else.

Birthday was just in front of the swimming pool and then friends started pushing everyone into the pool. When one guy was pushed into the pool, he realized he had this passport in his pant pocket with US visa on it.

He had to spend lot of money and time to get new passport, new visa stamp. Did you see how small birthday party turned to be a disaster?

Drive Safe

India we don’t follow driving rules. One of the things you will learn during your stay in US, it to follow the law and rules.

Driving ticket and car insurance are closely tied. If you get speeding ticket or an accident at your fault, your car insurance will go up for next 3 to 5 years.

Expect to pay higher car insurance rates.

If you don’t have driving license, then Don’t drive the car. Its not worth the risk.

Sharing car and bikes in India is very causal event, but that’s not the case in USA because of insurance coverage and rules associated with it.

If you have car insurance with your name then drive the car.

If you are planning to go on trip and you want to drive, then get your name added to the car rental agreement. It will cost extra money to add your name, but thats the right thing to do to save lot of money to you if you happen to have an accident.

Experience –

About 10 friends in 2 cars went on a trip with  2 drivers (one per car). One guy wanted to drive the other car to to feel the experience. His name was not on the rental agreement. Car toppled and had to  be trashed. Friend (driver was unconscious for some time). Insurance denied coverage because the person driving the car was not authorized to drive that car. They ended up sharing the cost of the new rental car (close to $27,000).

Health Insurance

I have come  across students who want to eat dahl all 7 days a week without buying any other greens, vegetables or fruit juice and they were bragging that grocery cost was only $50 per month.  Its not worth it.  Eat healthy, do exercise and play games to keep fit. Don’t try to save money by not buying healthy foods.

Make sure you have health insurance coverage. Health care costs are very expensive in USA. I have experienced it first hand (emergency surgery).

If university provides an option to buy health insurance from external providers, then go for it. Here is one place to buy cheap health insurance for international students.

Some colleges will require students to buy the health policy provided by them.  Even though it will be expensive, but it will be worth. If  they provide option to buy coverage outside, then check the above link.

People have gone broke and bankrupt due to medical costs. So, don’t try to save money by not buying medical coverage.

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9 Comments

  1. It is never advisable to get education at the cost of HEALTH.
    He who has Health has hope & he who has Hope has everything.

  2. Thanks for sharing such an valuable information. I am so sure people will learn form others mistakes.

    Regards
    Lakshmi

  3. The best post ever. But as usual, I came up with a doubt 😛 Does the health insurance of India apply to abroad too?
    I need an answer to this 🙂

    1. Companies like ICIC have Travel Insurance, but its real hassle when it comes to getting claims processed. For tourist it’s good to buy from them, since they will return to India and customer service is based in India. For students its better to get health insurance provided by the university (if mandatory) or buy from ISAO (link above) or any other provider you want to buy.

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