Abstract
According to data collected for international students around the world, there has been a steady increase in the number of students willing to take their studies in other countries. The trend is encouraged by several factors with globalization being the primary factor. It means that the students are more receptive to the idea of earning their degrees abroad and also interacting with people from different backgrounds and facilitating the transfer of culture. The governments recognize the benefits of globalization and thus encourages the programs for studying abroad. The employers around the world also prefer people who have foreign experience for certain jobs, and this encourages the studies in foreign countries. This study aims to prove the viability of the programs that have increase the number of students abroad and also establish the factors that affect these students.
Introduction
The 21st century is characterized by improved technology and better transport networks of the countries in the world, and thus there is better communication. Improved communication has resulted in the enrolment of several students in foreign educational institutions from where they conduct their studies. Foreign studying is affected by several factors. These factors can be classified as attracting factors and also pushing factors. This paper aims to discuss the situations surrounding the students who choose to study abroad and thus establish the causes of this move. The goal is also to establish the importance or advantages of the foreign studies to both students seeking to go abroad and to the institutions that are admitting them. The paper will touch on the effect that studying in a foreign country had on the students and to the residents. Finally, the factors that will be discussed is the current trends and challenges in the political world that affect the rate at which students are going abroad to study. Essentially, the challenges faced while studying abroad are outweighed by the massive benefits gained in the process.
Methodology
The research applied a mixed method of research to collect the data for investigation of the problem included the qualitative and the quantitate methods of collection of data. The research analyzed data based on the interviews of students who had undertaken international courses and the analysis of the videos and data that has been collected by other research articles. The quantitative methods were based on the questionnaire that collected data on various variables on life in another country.
Theoretical Framework
The number of international students in the world increased exponentially in the years leading to the turn of the century and also in recent decades. Students deciding to embark on international studies have various reasons considering that it is easier to study in the local universities. There are perceived benefits of studying abroad and thus the students get out of their comfort zones in their home countries and face challenges in a new countries. The challenges facing international students arise from the cultural shock they face and the financial problems and thus the students face them regardless to acquire a foreign country experience. This means that the perceived benefits outweigh the risks faced and thus analyzing the processes surrounding the international studies are examined.
The Literature Review
The literature review sought to handle the experiences of studying abroad by exploring four aspects of the process. These included the reasons for studying abroad, the benefits accrued from this, the challenges faced by the students and the current state of events regarding the international studies. A research by Hamad Alghamdi concluded that one of the benefits of international studies is the generation of revenue, citing the United States income from international studies in 2015, where the figures reached $30.5 Billion (ALGHAMDI & OTTE, 2016). Another research paper that was exploring the personal and the professional challenges that come with studying abroad explained that regardless of the student’s preparation for the new cultures, they are bound to be affected by the cultural shock that will face them. (Milian et al., 2015). This necessitated the review of a guide designed by Cushner & Karim to help international students to adapt to their environment and it indicated various steps that the international students will take to adjust to their new environment well. To examine the current trends in the international studies, a report by the Oxford University aimed at tracing these trend was analyzed and it added in demystifying the influences on the international students to settle in specific countries.
Discussion.
Reasons for studying abroad
The factors that cause students to choose studying abroad can be divided into push factors and the pull factors. The push factors are the events in the home countries of the students that force them to consider going abroad or the critical conditions in these countries that can be avoided by willingly gong abroad. The pull factors are the attracting conditions in the foreign countries that convince international students to apply to join the international students. These factors cover wide scope categories such as the politics of a country, the cultural attractiveness of a country, the amenities provided and most importantly the prestige of the educational institutions.
In the modern world of high connectivity, the major reasons for going abroad for study are pegged on the favorable conditions and the opportunities provided by the destination country. In a report compiled by the CGC examining the reasons for preference of a foreign course to a local course, several reasons were cited. One of these reasons is the desire to learn a foreign language. More people in the world are taking up courses for other languages to be bilingual or even multilingual. Being multilingual is an asset in the modern world where interactions are higher than ever (Cui, B. I. A. N, 2013). For instance, there is a current demand for people who are fluent in both the English language and the Spanish language. If the demand is maintained, the students from both the English speaking countries and those of the Spanish speaking countries will seek educational facilities of each other to improve their chances of employment.
Secondly, adventure is cited as another reason for the preference of studying abroad. In this case, the people who prefer to travel around the world will use the studying opportunities as a way to satisfy this need. Adventure can also come in the form of experiencing another culture in the foreign country. Students who have trivialized routine will seek to break out of it by developing an appreciation for other cultures. Some countries also simply provide better educational facilities and thus the students from other countries will be attracted to these countries. The US and the UK are the dominant players in facilitating this form of pulling factors. They harbor the majority of the major universities in the world, and thus the international students aiming to get to the academic peak will apply to these universities.
On the other hand, some students are encouraged to go abroad because of the adverse state of their countries. Students from countries that are under economic crises or political strife will use the educational opportunities to escape from these realities. The cases of students from developing countries seeking to study in a foreign institution are caused by a combination of a desire to get better educational facilities and a desire to escape from the dystopian realities in their war-torn world (Costa, 2012). An Africa, for instance, some programs provide scholarship opportunities for the bright but needy student who want to achieve their dreams through studying in prestigious foreign universities. An example of the programs is the Advance Africa program that gives scholarships to students in Africa to enable them to get an education in foreign countries. Another case to be analyzed is the number of immigrants from the Middle East who come into the European countries and the North American nations and end up getting an education on facilities in these countries. These factors represent the push factors for studying abroad.
Benefits of studying abroad
It should be noted that the interaction of international students with students from the destination countries enables the sharing of information and the cultural activities. The information shared is beneficial to both countries because, through this, innovation and other valuable knowledge such as medical concepts flow from one country to another. On top of that, the cultural interaction will help the world to achieve peace (Crhanová, 2007). Research denote that the major conflicts between countries in the past occurred due to the suspicion between the countries. When there is sharing of the culture of the different countries, there will be lesser conflicts and thus better international relations.
On top of these, the host countries gain revenue from the international students and thus benefit from foreign studies. The amount of revenue generated from the international education has risen in recent years increasing the figures towards the GDP. These figures are important to the economy and thus they rank as a benefit of international studies to the destination country. The benefits of studying abroad for the students range from improved chances of employment due to the added advantage of attending foreign educational institutions, for the students from developing countries, attending this institution enables the student to acquire an educational qualification that would have been otherwise impossible in the case of local institutions. For the students from developed countries, receiving education in developing countries will enable the student to be in touch with the problems that people in these countries go through, and thus it will give him or her a better understanding of the people from the other word (Tamas, 2014).
Challenges of studying abroad
The challenges of studying abroad affect mainly the students in many ways. These include challenges of adapting to a new environment and a new culture. It is not easy to acclimatize to the new conditions and a new culture. It is because everything is entirely new, starting from the friends and the food to the weather and environment resulting in a culture shoc. Cultural shock refers to the strange feeling of being in a new country where everything is new, and the culture is different. In the cases where the countries speak different languages, the cultural shock is even more significant considering the problems that the students will face in communicating with other people. The students who attend foreign studies in the US, for instance, may be intimidated by the foreign language, and thus they will have problems asking even for simple directions. Learning how to behave in different situations is still is essential in overcoming this cultural shock, and some students who have experiences in foreign countries have stated that the problems with language barrier are overcome when the students spend some time in the new country and learn the new language.
In other instances, the issues that international students have is the difference in the economic set up in means such as the currency. The students also take time to get used to the new currency and thus the time of adapting to this situation is highly uncomfortable. Ultimately, the student feels like an outsider in a new country with no support network and no friends who are extremely troubling in the initial cases. The challenges of lacking the support network that the student had become accustomed to include the creation of emotional barriers that will contribute to problems with the adaptation process and the development of homesickness.
Methods of acclimatizing to the new environment.
For the period of studying abroad to be successful, the international students will have to get over their cultural shock and be interested entirely in learning in the new environment. The students will have to develop the enthusiasm to study the new culture thoroughly and thus facilitate the primary objective of learning abroad. There are several ways of improving the experiences in the foreign country regardless of the culture shock. First, the student is advised to accept the culture shock like a normal process that happens to every individual as part of the transition process. The culture shock can be managed over time by the conduction of various activities such as preparation for the experience.
It is stated that different people react to culture shock differently and the student can put efforts so that the effect of the culture shock on them are not as devastating as in other people. On top of that, the guide states that the students can minimize the negative effects of the culture shock through learning the basics of the foreign language in case the destination country has a unique language. In this case, the culture shock due to lack of communication will be handled well. Thirdly, the students can look for the similarity of the foreign country to their home countries and thus develop a feeling of connection to the new country.
Secondly, the best way of dealing with culture shock is maintaining contact with people from the same culture. If the student has any friends or family in the new country, they will help him or her to get used to their new environment. Additionally, if the student does not know any people in the new region, maintain contact with the people at home through social media and emails will lessen the effect of the culture shock and thus promote the acclimatization (Knight & Schmidtâ€Rinehart, 2002). Finally, creating new friends in the local place will go a long way in dealing with the culture shock. The local people may be friendly, and the interaction can be through getting engaged in the activities of the local communities such as the community work. There may also be a number of international students in the same situation where they have to deal with the cultural shock. The interaction between the students of different countries who are new to the host country will also help in dealing with the cultural shock and additionally enhance the sharing of cultural experiences between them.
Political and legal trends in the world that affects studying abroad.
There are various events especially in the political world that have affected the conduction of international studies in the world. In Asia for instance, the government policies are directed towards enabling the movement of students across the borders rather than traveling to western countries for this matter. In effect, the ASEAN states in Asia have developed the “common space for higher education†program that encourages the student mobility within the southern Asia counties for education purposes. It is also the case for universities in the Latin American regions which have followed suit to develop programs whose essence is to encourage foreign studies within this region. Countries such as Brazil and Columbia have inspired the movement of students for overseas studies. The report cites that in Columbia, there has been the implementation of a program that promotes the exchange of students between the country and China. All these efforts represent the trends in the academic world that encourage studying abroad.
Government strategies in countries such as the USA and Germany have also contributed to this in that there has been established a scholarship for the students that wish to study abroad and thus encouraging the studies. According to this report, Germany helps the students to explore abroad through a program referred to as the German government and Academic Exchange service that funds German students wishing to study abroad with the objective of drastically increasing the number of students that undertake courses in other countries. The USA also has a similar program that is referred to as Generation Study Abroad that promotes the idea of American students studying abroad. All these factors have contributed to the promotion of studying abroad in line with the globalization targets (Lutterman-Aguilar & Gingerich, 2002).
Conclusion
Foreign studies have helped the students from different to not only acquire educational experience but also learn the foreign culture that is integral effects in the globalization and diplomacy target. The students studying abroad are encouraged by several factors to undertake this step. While conducting the foreign studies, the students are encouraged to tackle the challenges such as the culture shock since overcoming the shock represents the first step of adapting to and understanding foreign culture. Due to the realization of the importance of globalization, governments and other institutional agencies have put in place programs to enable students to study abroad. All these factors and essential for reviewing before starting a program to study abroad.