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Figure 4.5 University of Sydney undergraduate students: main differencesFigure 4.6 University of Technology Sydney undergraduate students: main differences2) Main difficulties of international students studying in Australian universitiesOf the 179 undergraduate students from the five universities, 66.67% said thatsocial communication and language are the main difficulties they experience whenstudying in Australian universities. For example, one student from Curtin Universitystates that it is hard to communicate with local students. There are 23 comments(41.07% from 56 comments from five different universities) from Curtin Universitywhich identify that social communication and language are the main difficulties.Culture shock, cultural differences and adaptation are also significant difficultiesexperienced by students. One student from Southern Cross University states thathe/she is confused by some cross-cultural problems, for example, the mutualunderstanding and the way of life. There are another 10 comments (55.56%) from atotal of 18 comments with similar answers from students who studied at SouthernCross University.There are other difficulties that students felt about study in Australia, such asassignment and exam difficulties, textbook difficulties and difficulties with teachingmethods. Figure 4.7 shows the distribution of these difficulties experienced byinternational students within the five universities.66