International Graduate Student Life: Building Grounded Theory

The paper analyses qualitative data on the topic of ‘international graduate student life’, and especially on the cultural and academic adaptation processes that graduates go through in a new environment. The paper describes and discusses the process of the work on the data. It deals with the theories and hypotheses that were generated during the process of analysis. It also describes some limitations and complexities that were encountered while working with the data and different computer packages. The report also tries to put the main story and the findings in the wider context of the existing sociological literature on the present topic of adaptation, managing change and intercultural relations between the representatives of different nationalities.