Exploring the experiences of the exchange students in NTU : do study abroad programs allow for cultural acquisition and adaptation?

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the experience of international students in NTU on exchange program and its impacts on their all round educational enrichment and cultural acquisition. While there has been a substantial growth in literature on high skilled international migration in recent years, the experiences and motivation of the international mobile student have been rather under-researched. In an attempt to redress this gap, this study draws on in-depth interviews with 18 students from five different continents of the world hailing from different cultural backgrounds. With an extensive ethnographic study, that entailed fieldwork and interviewing, of the adjustment, communication, motivation, interaction patterns of the 18 students, I attempt to analyze their lifestyles and how they negotiate their identities in the environments. In this paper, I use interactionism as the framework to show that short term study abroad programs do have a positive impact on overall development and cross-cultural enrichment of the students. However, individual differences and the other external factors such as the culture of the host (NTU students in Singapore) are also noted.