Exploring the Opportunities and Challenges of International Students

Exploring the Opportunities and Challenges of International Students opens with a focus on Taiwanese international students by defining the Taiwanese within historical and political context, providing an overview of the trends in studying abroad, as well as a literature review on Taiwanese international students’ adjustment process. Following this, the authors present an argument for integrating psychological, social and academic perspectives, highlighting the interrelation between these domains in empirical data collected using a new, integrated measure of students’ academic, social and psychological adjustment. Using a multi-university sample, the subsequent chapter presents a study of how types of emotional support play a role in how young Chinese international students’ experience academic stresses. In the penultimate study, in order to investigate students’ expectations and experiences when studying abroad, a group of outbound exchange students at Umeå University, Sweden, were surveyed before and after the experience of studying in a foreign country. In the concluding paper, the authors examine the challenges faced by international students in integrating into computer science programs at various institutions, identifying differences in student and faculty perceptions.