International Graduate Students’ Challenges: A Survey Based Study (original) (raw)
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Challenges For International Students In A Globally Changing Environment
2008 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Indian and Chinese students have comprised the largest section of the population for graduate research and degree programs in North America and other developed countries for more than two decades. Recently, India and China have become the fastest growing nations in technology, science and engineering. For the American university system, recruiting international students will be more competitive in the coming years due to technical opportunities and financial benefits easily achieved in their home countries. Universities and the United States technical community will need to proactively meet the demand for engineers in North America. International student recruitment has suffered since the global security crisis, which began in 2001 after the September 11 terrorist attack. The tightening of immigration policies and visa issuance in the USA has drastically influenced the number of graduate students studying in engineering schools across the United States. In addition, a series of challenges faced by international students during the journey from the beginning of graduate study to graduation are making student life more stressful than is necessary. Due to newly introduced policy issues, rules and regulations, students are finding their time usurped by government bureaucracy and are thus less focused on research goals and academic study. It is important for faculty mentors to be well informed of potential challenges in advance; this will enable them to help new international students navigate the system and achieve their goals. In this paper, a team of an international graduate student and faculty seek to develop resources for potential faculty mentors and graduate students at institutions within North America. The goal will be to a) make faculty and students aware of some common challenges and b) provide guidance on dealing with these challenges from both a faculty and a student perspective.
Journal of International Students, 2017
This study examines the post-graduation plans of international science and engineering doctoral students at a public research-intensive university, and the extent to which graduate school experiences influence post-graduation plans. The study is grounded in Tinto’s Integration Model as well as Berry’s Acculturation Model. Study findings highlight the variety of challenges international doctoral students go through such as adapting to a new culture, experiencing English language difficulties, and cultural, social, and academic adjustment barriers. Using survey data collected in 2013-2014, this study reveals the complexity of factors that affect post-graduation plans and need for institutional initiatives to provide socio-cultural and academic support, and recommends changes in immigration policies to sustain the retention of talented international scientists and engineers upon degree completion.
Contributions Of International Students To Engineering Graduate Schools In The United States
2008 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Many academic institutions in the United States have been looking for more expansion and exposures worldwide. They have been promoting their graduate programs to around the globe to the students who seek educational opportunities in the states. This paper discusses the importance and the criticality of having international students in the engineering graduate schools in the United States. It addresses the value of diversity they add, the contribution of international graduate students to the university expansion, and the university's international image as a recognized institution around the world. In this research, we investigate the key factors that motivate the international students to join engineering graduate schools in the USA. We discuss the added values resulting from this mutual interaction, and how this interaction serves as a feedback mechanism to the assessment of learning and the expansion process. Some of the reasons that appeal the international students to enroll in the engineering graduate programs in the states are the research quality and the invaluable experience of exposure to the industry that provides research funding. These exposures provide windows of opportunity for the students to apply theories in the form of real life applications. Furthermore, international students play a significant role in spreading their positive experience worldwide, and they bridge the gaps of enriched interactions between civilizations. Moreover, international students, whether they stay in the states or return their home countries, publicize the high quality of work in many different conducts that are discussed here in this paper. Most importantly, we elaborate on the causes and some of the adverse effects of relative decline in the number of international students pursuing graduate degrees in engineering schools in the U.S.
2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) Proceedings, 2014
The impacts of globalization, changing sociodemographics, and technological advances are uniquely altering the role of engineering in society, identifying significant challenges in the way colleges and universities address the engineering profession, engineering education, and associated engineering student assessment processes and practices. Schools of engineering have been challenged to reconsider how they prepare their graduates to bring high level skills and strategies including team focused innovation, a comprehensive engineering problem-solving approach, cultural competence, globally focused ethics, and leadership to the workplace. Numerous prominent organizations including the National Academy of Engineering, the National Science Foundation, and the National Research Council have charged engineering schools to task on preparing engineers for global workforces. In response, many engineering programs are experimenting with strategies and programs designed to prepare students to solve important engineering problems that stretch far beyond national boundaries geographically, technologically, culturally and sociopolitically. Sparse research exists, however, that comprehensively assesses globally focused outcomes associated with such engineering efforts, and the simple question remains: Are international efforts effective? The researchers compare the experiences of students participating in two Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs funded by the National Science Foundation; the NanoJapan International REU Program in Japan and the domestic Rice Quantum Institute (RQI) REU at Rice University. NanoJapan is a twelve-week summer program through which twelve freshman and sophomore physics and engineering students from U.S. universities complete research internships in Japanese nanotechnology laboratories. The RQI is a ten-week undergraduate REU in which sophomore and junior students from U.S. universities complete research in atomic, molecular, optical, surface, materials, chemical and biophysical sciences with faculty at Rice University. The students completed the Engineering Global Preparedness Index (EGPI), a multi-dimensional engineering global preparedness index that measures students' preparedness for global workforces. The four subscales in the EGPI directly align to important "soft" or professional skills needed by both engineers and other globally prepared professionals. By comparing EGPI results among participants in a domestic and international research experience, the researchers sought to gain insight into what global workforce competencies were developed in an international setting in comparison with the experience of conducting research in a domestic lab setting. Results indicate that the students in the NanoJapan program demonstrated greater increases in engineering global preparedness than the RQI students, and that the RQI students, who did not go abroad, actually declined on most measures of global preparedness at the end of the summer. The researchers posit that this may be attributed to the NanoJapan curriculum that encouraged participants to actively reflect on cultural aspects of research and to the nature of the international experience itself. Moreover, the NanoJapan experience may more closely mirror the typical global workforce/team experience students will encounter after graduation once entering the workforce. The researchers discuss implications for the design of international research and internship experiences.
The impacts of globalization, changing socio-demographics, and technological advances are uniquely altering the role of engineering in society, identifying significant challenges in the way colleges and universities address the engineering profession, engineering education, and associated engineering student assessment processes and practices. Schools of engineering have been challenged to reconsider how they prepare their graduates to bring high level skills and strategies including team focused innovation, a comprehensive engineering problem-solving approach, cultural competence, globally focused ethics, and leadership to the workplace. Numerous prominent organizations including the National Academy of Engineering, the National Science Foundation, and the National Research Council have charged engineering schools to task on preparing engineers for global workforces. In response, many engineering programs are experimenting with strategies and programs designed to prepare students to solve important engineering problems that stretch far beyond national boundaries geographically, technologically, culturally and socio-politically. Sparse research exists, however, that comprehensively assesses globally focused outcomes associated with such engineering efforts, and the simple question remains: Are international efforts effective? The researchers compare the experiences of students participating in two Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs funded by the National Science Foundation; the NanoJapan International REU Program in Japan and the domestic Rice Quantum Institute (RQT) REU at Rice University. NanoJapan is a twelve-week summer program through which twelve freshman and sophomore physics and engineering students from U.S. universities complete research internships in Japanese nanotechnology laboratories. The RQI is a ten-week undergraduate REU in which sophomore and junior students from U.S. universities complete research in atomic, molecular, optica- , surface, materials, chemical and biophysical sciences with faculty at Rice University. The students completed the Engineering Global Preparedness Index (EGPI), a multi-dimensional engineering global preparedness index that measures students' preparedness for global workforces. The four subscales in the EGPI directly align to important "soft" or professional skills needed by both engineers and other globally prepared professionals. By comparing EGPI results among participants in a domestic and international research experience, the researchers sought to gain insight into what global workforce competencies were developed in an international setting in comparison with the experience of conducting research in a domestic lab setting. Results indicate that the students in the NanoJapan program demonstrated greater increases in engineering global preparedness than the RQI students, and that the RQI students, who did not go abroad, actually declined on most measures of global preparedness at the end of the summer. The researchers posit that this may be attributed to the NanoJapan curriculum that encouraged participants to actively reflect on cultural aspects of research and to the nature of the international experience itself. Moreover, the NanoJapan experience may more closely mirror the typical global workforce/team experience students will encounter after graduation once entering the workforce. The researchers discuss implications for the design of international research and internship experiences.
Special Session: What Works to Retain Students in Chemical Engineering Programs
2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
, where she was a tenured Associate Professor. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame in 2003 and B.S. from Michigan Technological University in 1998. Adrienne's research interests include electrokinetics and the development of biomedical microdevices. She earned a 2007 NSF CAREER award; her group has published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Lab on a Chip, and had an AIChE Journal cover. She is an active mentor of undergraduate researchers and served as co-PI on an NSF REU site. Research within her Medical micro-Device Engineering Research Laboratory (M.D. ERL) also inspires the development of Desktop Experiment Modules (DEMos) for use in chemical engineering classrooms or as outreach activities in area schools. Adrienne has been an active member of ASEE's WIED, ChED, and NEE leadership teams since 2003.
International Students: A Mindful Approach
2012
In the Academic year 2010-2011 the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (SCCE) at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) saw the first large scale inclusion of students from East China University of Science and Technology, (ECUST), seconded into the Level 3 of our chemistry programme. The students had a specific interest in developing their laboratory and research skills. This paper discusses our experiences from a broad perspective and in so doing highlights challenges and issues as outlined in the Higher Education Academy (HEA) literature and includes a case study of the experiences of our international students. Reference is made throughout to the HEA International lifecycle as a framework to discuss the experience. Strategies and support put in place for our international students are discussed and an account of the mutual learning experience that this inaugural year offered is shared and supported by information obtained from a student survey, the Staff Student Consultative Committee (SSCC), focus groups and informally. These consultations took place both throughout and at the end of the year. This feedback provides an insight into the student experience, which can be used to inform a future approach and facilitate the continued provision of the necessary student support. The paper also includes some practical material prepared especially for the laboratory teaching environment, and a bilingual list of common laboratory equipment and materials which is included in the supplementary data.