(1491)THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION – LOCALTENDENCIES AND REALITIES IN THE EDUCATION OF STUDENTSOF ENGINEERING AND NATURAL SCIENCES IN A MEXICANUNIVERSITY – A CASE STUDY

摘要

The present work is part of a greater research project which is currently in the stage of exploration.The project aims at exploring the education of students abroad seen from their perspective during theirstay abroad.Since the end of the 20th century, higher education institutions (HEI) in Mexico have reinforced variousstrategies to meet national and international requirements implicated by processes of globalization.For that reason, some HEI have been reacting making use of the opportunities to implement studentsexchange programs, to prepare their students in foreign countries.Based on a literature review, the present research aims at giving answers to questions as thefollowing: What characterizes the internationalization of higher education in a Mexican university?What are the tendencies and in which way do they influence our local educational sector?The special interest of this exploratory research work is focused on case studies in which statementsof pre-graduate students of engineering and natural sciences studying in European universities give aparticular insight into the process of internationalization and some of its consequences. This workintends to describe the situations with which these students are confronted during and after a stayabroad as well as to retain the students’ perspective about the personal and professional conditionsand circumstances they experienced during and after their stay abroad. In these interviews answerscan be found to questions regarding motivations, reasons and objectives for studying abroad, specialsituations. Moreover, there are questions about the students’ expectations when coming back, aboutthe types of situations and circumstances they found themselves confronted with when coming back totheir educational environment in Mexico.With all this we hope to be able to contribute to improve educational processes, and to make findingsfrom the point of view of its main actors as well as to support administrative decision making themoment when students enter academic exchange programs.