Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- About the authors
- Preface
- PART 1 Students in the global market
- PART 2 Security in the formal and public domain
- PART 3 Security in the informal and private domain
- 11 The universities
- 12 Language
- 13 Family and friends
- 14 Loneliness
- 15 Intercultural relations
- PART 4 Protection and empowerment
- References
- Index
11 - The universities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- About the authors
- Preface
- PART 1 Students in the global market
- PART 2 Security in the formal and public domain
- PART 3 Security in the informal and private domain
- 11 The universities
- 12 Language
- 13 Family and friends
- 14 Loneliness
- 15 Intercultural relations
- PART 4 Protection and empowerment
- References
- Index
Summary
When you first come here, you have no idea what to do. You end up like finding out about the whole university because they throw you from one place to the other.
~ male, 28, science, IndonesiaINTRODUCTION: THE CONSUMER AS SUPPLICANT
‘Do but despise understanding and science, which are the highest of all human gifts, and you have surrendered yourself to the devil and must surely perish.’
So says Goethe in Mephistopheles. And, as websites of universities around the world tell us, those who desire ‘understanding and science’ must enrol at a university.
Those same university websites also describe their institutions as the path to individual enrichment and prosperity. That message might be more potent. After all it is Accounting and not Aristotle that puts bread on the table. But universities are very large and only intermittently friendly. It is not very easy to access scientific knowledge and professional careers in a foreign university in a strange country.
International students have three sets of relations with the university: with administrative processes, with academic staff and with student services. As the evidence below will show the harder moments are mostly with administration. Relations with services are more positive than negative. Academic experiences are mixed, but fraught because much is at stake. Often internal university dealings are mediated by an international student office, especially in the crucial early weeks.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- International Student Security , pp. 271 - 293Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010