Last year the number of international students in the U.S. who pursued higher education across all 50 states increased by seven percent, reaching an all-time high of 819,644 students, while their spending contributed approximately $24 billion to the U.S. economy, according to the Institute of International Education.
“International education promotes the relationship building and knowledge exchange between people and communities in the U.S. and around the world that are necessary to solve global challenges,” said Evan M. Ryan, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.
The University of Memphis has played a role in the national increase of students from around the world that come to the United States pursing a college education, thus promoting diversity while strengthening global challenges.
Just last semester alone, the U of M had a total of 565 international students enrolled either as degree seeking students or as non-degree seeking students.
Non-degree students at the U of M are called exchange students because they come to study at the University for only one or two semesters before they are required to return back home to continue their studies at a college in their country.
While degree seeking students are called international students because they come for one or two academic years, usually as graduate students seeking their master’s degree before returning home.
According to Johnathon Holland, the study abroad advisor at the U of M, 24 out of 565 foreign students at the University last semester were non-degree seeking exchange students from all over the world. However, the remaining 541 students were degree seeking graduate level international students.
“(The majority of these exchange students) come from India, Japan, Korea, France and the United Kingdom,” Holland said.
Both exchange and international students go through the Center for International Programs and Services here on campus for assistance regarding everything from student enrollment to cultural adjustment.
“I occasionally get homesick but learning to survive financially is the hardest challenge,” Aruna Jydhi Gedela, a 26-year-old international graduate student at the U of M, said.
Originally from India, Gedela is the first person in her family to study abroad.
Gedela began her master’s in management information systems at the U of M last August.
“It was hard preparing all the documents needed to get here from India online, especially when it came to the graduate assistantship,” Gedela said.
Because international students are not legal citizens they are not allowed to work anywhere but on campus, so a graduate assistantship is a paid academic appointment made to a graduate student that involves part-time teaching or research. This assistantship is essentially an international student’s livelihood during graduate school.
Other than minor complications filling out the correct documents needed to study here, Gedela loves it in Memphis.
“The ultimate thing I love about Memphis is the people are very helpful and accepting of different cultures,” Gedela said.
Holland said one of the aspects that stand out to students from abroad is the student life.
“One aspect of the U of M that students from abroad really enjoy is student life and the campus community. The concept of student life is a uniquely American thing,” Holland said.
Gedela said there is always something to do on campus, especially in the University Center.
“The U of M is a really good host,” Gedela said.
Holland said in the long run that everyone will benefit between the interaction of students from abroad and Americans.
“The number one goal for the student exchange and study abroad program is to facilitate mutual understanding between Americans, more specifically University of Memphis students and students from our partner institutions from around the world,” Holland said. “In the long-run international programs benefit the city of Memphis, the region, and the U.S. culturally, socially, economically, etc. as a whole as well as our international partners.”
For more information about the study abroad programs at the University of Memphis, students can visit http://www.memphis.edu/abroad/.
