kay, so i read most of this, just wanted to drop my 10cent in and grab some popcorn...
first things first, i am not a CFI, nor an international student.
There are quite a few international students at my local flight school, from India... this is just personal experience with them (student to student)
The goods...
There are actually a few guys my age (17ish) that i've met at the flight school (i've been spending 5+ hours a day there) that are actually really nice guys, i bring them out to movies and dinner with my friends after a day of flying and these guys are really likeable, aside from the obvious language problem, we treat them like anyone of our other friends and they treat us the same. to me, they (some of them) are honest and trustworthy. (i've left my pair of BoseX in one of the planes once and one of the international students went up with the plane for a solo, after the flight he spent at least 10min hunting me down to make sure i got the headsets back)
All i'm saying is that there are some good guys that come to north america to learn how to fly...
The bads...
one of them wanted to get his flight hours done but all the planes were booked up, so what does he do? he ERASES my name and puts his down on 'MY' spot!! like wtf, if you wanted the plane, come ask me for it, i would have given it to you, thats just wrong. (i have 3 hours booked everyday, wayy more then i need to achieve my goal of 40hr before late sept, and i've given my spots to others before)
actually, i could go on, but i got a eairly flight tomorrow, later.