The aim of this study is to determine the perceptions of international students studying in Turkey and university students who are Turkish citizens and continue their education in Turkey in relation to being an international student with the help of metaphors. The study group consists of 79 students, 35 of which are Turkish citizens and 44 are international students, studying at Giresun University in the spring term of the 2016-2017 academic year. The study was conducted according to the phenomenology model among qualitative research patterns. The data of the study were obtained by university students filling in the sentences such as "being an international student is similar to/like....... because......". The international students in the study group produced 43 different valid metaphors and students who were Turkish citizens produced 27 different valid metaphors. It was observed that 59 of these metaphors were positive, and 11 of them were negative. The metaphors created by the international students were included in 11 categories, and the metaphors created by the students who were Turkish citizens were included in nine categories