After flying over 5,800 miles away from home, Yiming “Ben” Ding  and Meixuan “Billy” Chen, two best friends from China, settled into their residence hall room at the University of Oregon yesterday.

But this is not the first time that they are studying far from home. Despite coming from the same East China province of Shandong, Ding and Chen first met each other in high school in Beijing.

“We were also roommates back then and we were both planning to go to America for college,” Chen said. “Because the education here is much better than China.”

Ding got offers from three different universities, including the University of Oregon. After some online research, Ding decided that he wanted to spend four years of college being a Duck and convinced Chen to come with him. They are now roommates once again, this time in McClean Residence Hall.

“America and Oregon is definitely different from my country,” Ding said. “But I can accept the differences. One reason I want to be far from my family is because I want to train myself and be independent.”

“I especially love the friendliness culture here,” Chen added. “Everyone is so nice and they always say hi to you.”

Ding and Chen also enjoy living in a scenic, quiet environment at UO to focus on their studying and perfect their English skills.

“My priority is to be able to speak like a native student and do well in school, of course,” Ding said.

“I want to finish school in America and hopefully get a job here,” Chen said. “But I just want to work here for a couple years for experience and then come back to China for sure.”

Besides sharing the same dream of having higher education in America, Ding and Chen usually spend hours and hours fighting each other on an online game called Dota 2.

“I guess that is what’s special about us,” Chen said. “We also play a lot of ping pong too. That’s how we have fun.”

Despite having each other, the two first-year international students still stumble upon challenges. The biggest obstacle for them is language barrier, Chen said. But they are more than ready to take on challenges at their new school.