Contributions Of International Students To Engineering Graduate Schools In The United States

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\u27s 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. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2008