A foreign education

What students gain or miss out on when they stay home to take courses from overseas universities

As more universities go global and set up campuses or run programs on foreign soil, students have greater opportunities to take overseas courses without actually having to go overseas.

Abroad, At Home
Unlike distance learning courses of the past, when students corresponded from home with tutors based in other countries, courses from foreign providers are now conducted either on the premises of a suitable local education partner, or from an off-shore campus of the home university.

Students can thus experience both the courses and culture of the overseas university, minus the considerable expense of travelling and living abroad, and the numerous personal adjustments required to study and reside in a strange land.

Such programmes also give students the easily accessible alternative of choosing courses and teaching or learning styles that may not be available through local institutions.

Universities benefit too from reaching out to a global student base, far wider than the traditional target prospects of locally based students or those able and willing to relocate to a new country for a number of years. The institution can also give students from its home campus the option of continuing their studies in another country and culture, almost seamlessly, without having to switch education paths or schools.

Losing Traditions?
It is however, a pity that students of overseas courses in their home country miss out on the immediacy of the university's traditional campus environment that surrounds students enrolled in courses delivered on the home campus. Especially in universities with a long history, on-campus students feel part of an tradition, seeing and using daily the physical rooms and routes through which generations of students have trooped.

Foreign students who attend an overseas university are also immersed in the culture of the country they have come to, broadening their life experience and their understanding of themselves and others.

While an offshore campus may attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the home university, the faculty and staff themselves may not have come from the main campus, and may not have come from the main campus, and may have been hired specifically for the new one. They will not have the grounding of the university's particular culture to impart it to students or to newer faculty members or administrators.

Not that Different
Then again, universities with exclusive grounds of their own, and a campus laid out around a main building, are becoming very rare. Many well established universities in their home countries consist only of scattered buildings spread out across a city, with students moving through the streets and even taking buses and trains to get from class to class. So why should an offshore campus or programs delivered through a local partner be so very different, as long as the fundamental mission of the university is retained.

In any case, any university worth its salt these days faculty from all over the world, visiting lectures and an international community of students. Even on a traditional campus where every lecture hall, administrative office, tutor's room and university club is situated on one massive plot of land , an individual student is only as immersed and involved as he chooses to be.

Every kind of set-up faces its own special challenges. And with just about every organization on the planet now reaching out to a global audience through the Internet and overseas representatives, why should a university do otherwise?

Wisdom from Human Adele Ong