Presentation on the challenges that international students face as they transition into a new academic environment. This presentation was delivered to the Faculty of Engineering (University of Toronto) in August 2010.

1. 1 Challenges Facing International Students Presentation for the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

3. What are the challenges students face?

4. Personal

5. Academic

6. Professional

7. Overview of the approach at Rotman

9. About 10% of undergraduates

10. About16% of graduatesFigures understate the reality since landed immigrants are not included Source: Towards 2030, http://www.towards2030.utoronto.ca/full.html * Estimated figures for 2010includes landed immigrants

12. Domestic students gain from learning about and experiencing differences positively

13. Universities can achieve excellence only by engaging the rest of the world

16. Significant investment

17. Long separations from family

18. Basic needs must be addressed first

19. Establishing new social networkMaslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

21. Integration versus self-imposed segregation

22. Handling diversity of classrooms

23. Cultural barriers

25. formality, grades, etc…

26. Plagiarism

27. understanding

28. Group Dynamics

29. cultural differences

30. style differences

31. skill sets development

32. Professors & Students

33. domestic and international

34. Administrators & Students

35. problem/crisis awareness

36. Assessments

38. Development of professional network

40. No one size fits all

41. Needs are different depending on program, country of origin, gender, among other attributes

42. For example:

43. Graduate business students have more pressure towards professional accomplishment

45. Pre-program 360 Assessment

46. International Student Orientation Programs

47. Mentorship Programs

49. 13 Questions? Laura Wood laura.wood@rotman.utoronto.ca 416.978.3943