Fayetteville : Engineering students at UA going to India
Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/154101/
A simple errand to the fourth floor of the University of Arkansas’ Bell Engineering Building set Marcus Hopkins on the path of a much larger journey.
Hopkins was working as a student aide for the College of Engineering when he was asked to deliver drinks to a meeting about a new study-abroad program for engineering students.
Now, the civil engineering student at the Fayetteville campus will be one of six students to make the 8, 955-mile trip from Northwest Arkansas to Bangalore, India, this summer. They are participating in a six-week pilot program to study engineering in the southern India city of 6. 1 million people.
It will be the first UA-sponsored program in India, and the College of Engineering’s first study-abroad program.
“This will be my first time out of the country,” said Hopkins, 22, a Harrison native. “I hadn’t even planned on going to a meeting.”
Students will travel July 3 to New Delhi, where they will spend five days before journeying to Bangalore. The program also will take them to Agra and Jaipu.
Findlay Edwards, associate professor of civil engineering, will travel with the students and teach courses on air pollutioncontrol, as well as India’s history and culture.
Other students participating in the program are Catherine Erickson, Stephen McCall, Jonathan “Cole” Penick, Grace Richardson and Jiashou “Jimmy” Xu. They were selected from more than 30 applicants, said Ashok Saxena, dean of the College of Engineering.
The students chosen showed broad interests, good academic records and the ability to adapt to the challenges of living in a Third World country, Edwards said. The program will allow the students to study engineering in a country of growing influence in the industry while interacting with a culture they are likely to encounter throughout their careers, he said.
“The world is getting smaller,” Saxena said. “The relationships between engineers in different countries is getting stronger.”
The program is the latest of several on the university’s growing list of study-abroad opportunities, said DeDe Long, director of UA’s office of study abroad and international exchange. Between September 2005 and Aug. 1, 2006, about 500 students from the Fayetteville campus will have studied overseas, including about 165 participating in 15 UA-sponsored programs this summer.
Sixteen percent of 2005 graduates studied abroad at some point during their time at UA, Long said. The university would like to see that number grow to 30 percent in the next five to 10 years.
In his semi-annual letter to UA Alumni and Friends in February, Chancellor John A. White said the university must prepare its students for a global marketplace where physical distances are bridged by the Internet and other telecommunications.
“As the world flattens, our course offerings are evolving to meet the demands,” he wrote. “Rather than limit our teaching to one segment of the world, we are incorporating global civilization throughout our teaching.”
Studying overseas broadens students’ perspectives and allows them to interact with different cultures, Long said.
“When they graduate, they’re going to have to go out and work with people from many different cultures,” she said. “The playing field is completely level now.”
Students traveling abroad this summer will study in countries including Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Mexico, China and Brazil. Another first-time program sponsored by the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences will take 17 students on a tour of South Africa to study the country’s political, social and natural history.
Traditionally, study-abroad programs have focused on the humanities and social sciences. Only recently have business and engineering colleges begun to take part, Long said.
The College of Engineering selected India for its first program because of its increasing influence in the industry, said Carol Gattis, the college’s director of recruitment, retention and minority affairs.
“India and China are becoming superpowers in engineering,” she said.
Students originally were going to study in the southern town of Thanjuvar, but the program was shifted to the International Center for Management and India Studies in Bangalore because it offers a more thriving metropolitan area.
“We thought it would be a richer experience for them,” Gattis said.
Officials want to enlarge the program to at least 15 students next year and expand course offerings to attract students from other UA campuses.
The cost is $ 8, 500 per student. The College of Engineering is giving each student $ 5, 500, and five of the students got additional financial assistance from the UA Honors College. Hopkins, the only nonhonors student, got a grant from the college’s civil engineering department and the Arkansas Academy of Civil Engineers.
Hopkins, who hopes to pursue a career in civil engineering with a global company, said he looks forward to studying in a foreign country and gaining experience that will make him more marketable after graduation.
“I think air pollution’s a global problem,” he said. “Being able to look at it beyond the [United States ] is important. Civil engineering is just getting started in the global market.”
To contact this reporter: cpark@arkansasonline. com