Welcome to the Cornish College of the Arts Library! We hope that our library will become a place where you feel welcome as you study at Cornish. The Librarians are here to help you. Come talk with us regardless of your question or concern - we love questions of all sorts! Our Librarians have subject knowledge in all of the departments taught at Cornish and are here to help.

This guide gathers some resources in one place that may help you with many of the challenges you may face when you move to Seattle.

Image from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Seattle_3.jpg

My name is Neng Zhang. I am a recent Master's of Library and Information Science graduate from the University of Washington.  I am also an international student from China. The reason I created this guide is because the topics covered in this guide are the questions I was asking during my studies in Seattle and I know many international students have the same questions.

In my two years' study, I have suffered through the language barrier, cultural shock, conflicts with landlords, unfair treatment in employment, unfamiliarity with the social security system, difficulty in finding shopping, housing, transportation information, etc.  However, no one handed me the answers on how to solve them. Instead, I found the answers through my experiences. I put all these lessons I learned together for you. This guide not only has resources that can help you solve the problems but is also combined with my experience and personal tips on when, why, and how to use these resources.  I hope it can be a useful problem-solving tool if you encounter any of the situations mentioned in this guide.

Best wishes for your studies at Cornish, 

Neng