Challenges to international students of one-year taught masters bioscience programmes

1. Challenges to international students of one-year taught mastersbioscience programmes Chris Cane, AneelaMajid, and Annette Cashmore

6. “You know, settling in is very important especially when you're going to foreign country that you haven't been before. It's a scary experience “

8. “First three months we couldn't hang out much. We couldn't meet other people…. didn't have a chance to interact because morning til evening you would have work.”

10. “I was … facing difficult in learning things. .. according to this university pattern. It's totally different..... It's like you have to do each and everything on that day itself, to cope up with the studies properly. But coming from India, back home we do other things also, involved in home activities. We don't do the things on that day itself. But here for example if you're taught one lecture today, if you go home and do that it's very good for you………..the lecture and the assignments are just .... one after the other. We never used to have assignments back in India…..It's like not one after the other. Maybe, once a month or twice a month. But here it's like two, three assignments in a week itself so it gets jumbled up”

12. “I really believe that students should become enlivened, stimulated, excited by what’s going to happen (in their degree). Not dumped with info “and this is where you do that.” I mean it’s necessary but it’s not sufficient.”

13. “It's a steep learning curve when you come here. You've got to be ready from day one basically” “because you have a lot of international students and because they haven’t been educated in the UK. There’s a certain way that I used to write essays in Malawi that I have been taught, that you can’t use here. It’s very very different. And from an international students, what you see is that they’ve got a completely different style. There’s a different way of thinking. In the way you sort of analyse your thoughts……..”

15. “I think the biggest thing that we run up against and it's not necessarily exclusively the international students but it's certainly much more with the international students, is the academic culture.” “I think one of the biggest challenges for international students in particular is the academic culture because they just don't get. You know, it's different..... suddenly there's much more emphasis on engagement and taking responsibility for your learning”

16. ‘It's better if I get a degree from UK. It's internationally renowned….. that's my ticket to having a nice career’ (Indian student) ‘You're doing it because you're trying to invest in your future because you know opportunities will open up for you after doing the MSc’ (Nigerian student) ‘when someone gets certificate from here and goes back home, it's highly valued, highly respected’ (Nigerian student)

17. “internationalisation has a wide variety of different meanings. You can take it from the recruitment of perspective of just bringing in more international students and internationalising campus. It can mean the internationalisation of the curriculum whereby you’re looking at global citizenship. .” “You know it’s the first time I've heard that word….”

19. “I would say that my decision to study here was the best choice and have no complaints whatsoever” (Indian student)

20. Chris Cane AneelaMajid Geetha Narayanan Annette Cashmore Bioscience MSc Students 2008 - 2013