| Studying in the US: Science Students Are Promised No More Visa Delays | |
| 11 June 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
American officials say they are working to reduce visa delays that have affected foreign science students, researchers and others. The delays involve a security clearance process called Visas Mantis. Through this program, different government agencies try to identify visa applicants who could threaten national security.
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| A guard inspects the documents of visa-seekers outside the United States embassy in Beijing in 2005 |
The United States strengthened its visa requirements after the terrorist attacks in two thousand one. But the Visas Mantis program already existed by then. The State Department combined several programs dating to the Cold War into the current program in nineteen ninety-eight.
There have been delays before. Officials said the average processing time in October of two thousand three was seventy-five days. The wait was cut to fifteen days under pressure from Congress. But the wait time has increased again over the past year.
Andy Laine, a State Department spokesman, says the program now has more workers and new procedures. He says the changes went into effect on May twenty-ninth with the goal to process all requests within two weeks.
But he also says many visas are delayed because foreign students do not bring all their paperwork when requesting their travel documents. He advises students to make an appointment at an American embassy or consulate as soon as they are accepted to a school. They should take all their acceptance materials with them.
Higher education groups complained about the delays for foreign science students and scholars. So did professional groups that hold international conferences in the United States.
The delays may be one reason why graduate school applications from international students have slowed for the third year. Early findings show that applications rose just four percent from two thousand eight to two thousand nine.
The Council of Graduate Schools says this followed an increase of six percent last year and nine percent the year before that. International applications increased by twelve percent from two thousand five to two thousand six.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Bob Doughty.
| Studying in the US: Getting a Military Education | |
| 03 June 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
This week in our Foreign Student Series, we talk about military education programs in the United States. There are public and private colleges and universities that offer military educations. But international students can also attend the nation's five service academies.
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| Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point celebrate graduation as Army officers on May 23 |
Nominees for these academies must be seventeen to twenty-three years old, unmarried and with no children. Candidates are usually nominated by members of Congress. International candidates are nominated by their home governments, which pay for their education.
Each government has its own requirements for military service after students graduate. Americans who attend these four-year colleges must serve at least five years of active duty.
The Defense Department chooses more than one hundred countries every year and invites them to nominate students to the academies. As many as sixty foreign students may attend each school at any one time.
For example, the next class at the Naval Academy will include eighteen foreign students, four of them female. This will bring the total number of foreign students at the Naval Academy to fifty- three.
Tim Disher, head of international programs, says those interested should contact the agency that includes their own naval department. Plus, all of the academies have admissions information on their Web sites.
International students can also attend the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, and the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York. The Coast Guard Academy can have thirty-five international students at any one time; the Merchant Marine Academy, thirty.
These schools have their own entrance requirements. The Coast Guard Academy says interested students should contact the defense attache at their local United States embassy. Foreign students interested in the Merchant Marine Academy must request application forms directly from the admissions office.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
| Studying in the US: A Lesson in Personal Finance, Part 2 | |
| 27 May 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
We continue now with our discussion of personal finance for students.
A study in the United States found that eighty-four percent of undergraduates last year had at least one credit card. Half had four or more. Borrowers who do not pay their card debt in full each month have to pay interest on whatever balance remains.
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| Brea Thompson, a student at Washington State University, with a credit card in 2005 |
More than three-fourths had to pay finance charges last year because they carried a balance. The average balance was more than three thousand dollars.
Last Friday, President Obama signed into law a credit card reform bill. It includes protections for people under the age of twenty-one. To get a credit card, they will need a parent or other adult over twenty-one to accept joint responsibility. Or they will need to show they can repay their debts independently.
Colleges will have to make public any agreements with credit card marketers. And credit card companies may not offer gifts on or near a campus to persuade students.
Also, schools are urged to consider limiting the number of places on campus where companies can market credit cards. And they are urged to offer credit card and debt education and counseling sessions to all new students.
The new measures from Congress take effect in February.
Getting a credit card can already be difficult for international students. College advisers say those who want one might consider arriving with one from home.
Debit cards withdraw money directly from a bank account. But advisers say these can also be difficult sometimes for foreign students to get.
A good source of advice about local banking is a school's international student office. At Penn State, for example, adviser Pat Coleman says they have worked with local banks to make banking easier for international students.
Students are generally advised to budget around one to two thousand dollars for expenses for a school year in the United States.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. A correction: George Mason University is advising the American University of Ras Al-Khaimah, not in Dubai as we said recently. I'm Steve Ember.
| Studying in the US: A Lesson in Personal Finance | |
| 20 May 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
A question from the teacher. Susanna Wesson writes: "I teach English to French students of engineering who benefit very much from your Foreign Student Series. Could you do a program on money, banking and shopping for students in the U.S.?"
Many colleges and universities in the United States have guidelines for what they consider reasonable budgets for personal spending.
Senem Bakar is the assistant director of International Student Services at American University in Washington, D.C. She suggests that students budget at least one thousand three hundred dollars for a nine-month school year. This will help pay for things like transportation, telephone bills, supplies and entertainment.
Paul Butler is the financial manager in the Office of International Services at Indiana University Bloomington. He says the advice there is to have at least two thousand four hundred dollars for twelve months in the United States.
Indiana and many other schools also offer advice on ways to manage spending and save money. For example, for entertainment, look for free concerts or museums. Want to go to a movie? Prices are usually lower in the daytime than at night.
American University advises students to check newspaper advertisements for sales and to use money-saving coupons. If a product is "on sale," that means it is being offered for a limited time at a reduced price. Senem Bakar says students learn that in the United States you can find almost everything on sale somewhere.
Also, many banks offer special services for students, like free checking accounts, including a debit card. Debit cards can be used almost anywhere credit cards are accepted.
Millions of Americans now use a debit card or credit card, instead of paper money or checks, to make most of their purchases.
With a credit card, you are borrowing money every time you use it. Debit cards are different. They are linked directly to a checking account so you are paying with your own money.
Debit cards, also known as check cards, do not have interest charges. But users are charged if they try to spend more than the amount available in their account. These fees can be costly even if you overspend by just a few cents.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by June Simms. Earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
| Studying at an American University, Just Not in the US | |
| 13 May 2009 |
Correction attached
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
This week in our series on American higher education, we discuss programs that are available in the Middle East.
We talked last week about Michigan State University which opened a campus in August in the United Arab Emirates. MSU Dubai offers undergraduate degrees in areas including business, engineering, education and telecommunications. It also offers some graduate programs.
This October, Michigan State plans to open a pre-college program -- the MSU Dubai Academy. The aim is to help foreign students prepare to attend an American school.
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| A lecture hall at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar |
But the worldwide economic downturn is affecting the plans of some schools. For example, earlier this year Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania suspended its plans to open a campus in Abu Dhabi.
And George Mason University in Virginia is closing its campus in Ras Al Khaimah, another of the United Arab Emirates. One reason is the recession. But the campus Web site says that several issues made it impossible for the university to offer the same quality education as in the United States.
University Provost Peter Stearns tells us that the effort failed largely because of a dispute with their local partner in the campus. The disagreement involved the operating budget and academic control.
The George Mason campus opened in two thousand six. But student numbers have been disappointing. Peter Stearns says the campus had between two hundred fifty and three hundred students this year. He says more than fifty of them hope to attend the home campus in Fairfax, Virginia, in September.
And he says George Mason will remain involved in education in the Middle East as an adviser to the American University in Dubai.
The Harvard Medical School Dubai Center was launched in two thousand four. It offers professional development and postgraduate training but no degree programs. Harvard says it has no plans for a campus, but wants to help Dubai develop its Academic Medical Center.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
| Studying in the US: Growing Interest in Agriculture? | |
| 06 May 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
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| Gitek Schoene, a graduate student at the University of Florida, measures the growth of landscape plants in 2004 |
But the crop of foreign students in agriculture and natural resources was twenty percent bigger than the year before. The Institute of International Education in New York says that was the biggest increase of any area of study. So this week in our Foreign Student Series we look at agriculture programs in the United States.
About one hundred colleges and universities began as public agricultural schools and continue to teach agriculture. These are known as land-grant schools.
In eighteen sixty-two, Congress passed legislation that gave thousands of hectares to each state. States were to sell the land and use the money to establish colleges to teach agriculture, engineering and military science. A congressman from Vermont, Justin Smith Morrill, wrote the legislation.
The state of Michigan already had an agricultural college. But that college was the first to officially agree to receive support under the Morrill Act. It grew into what is now Michigan State University in East Lansing.
Today, Michigan State has more than forty thousand students. More than four thousand of them are international students. They come from one hundred twenty-five countries.
The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University offers sixty programs of study. Richard Brandenburg is the associate dean for graduate programs. He says foreign agriculture students this year are from countries including Japan, the Netherlands, Rwanda, El Salvador, Turkey, Sri Lanka and India.
In all, the college has four hundred thirty-three foreign students in East Lansing. It also has eleven students at a campus in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The only agriculture program currently offered in Dubai is construction management.
Michigan State opened its Dubai campus in August. It has only about fifty students now, but the university says it has received about ninety applications for admission this fall. We'll talk more about foreign campuses of American universities next week.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Bob Doughty.
| Studying in the US: Writing College Papers | |
| 29 April 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Today in our Foreign Student Series we discuss writing college papers. Writing a term paper, research paper or essay for a college class is a kind of academic writing. Academic writing among professionals is a way to create new knowledge.
A professor assigns students to write a paper. The students examine an issue, review what is already known, think about what they have learned and come to some conclusion.
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| A student-writer must present information and also take a position |
Cultural differences may interfere when international students try to write this way. Writing teachers say students in many countries have learned to write beautiful descriptions about something without ever stating the main idea. American college students are expected to state their main idea at the beginning of the paper.
In other cultures, paragraphs may be organized to build toward the main idea, which is revealed at the end. But in the United States, the main idea of each paragraph should be in the first sentence. Another difference is about writing style. Other cultures may use lots of descriptive words. But American English values short, strong sentences.
Teachers at the writing center at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana work with students to improve their writing. Graduate tutor Lars Soderlund says non-native English speakers generally have some trouble with English grammar.
He says their sentences may be too long. Or they incorrectly use articles such as "a", "an" and "the." He also says non-native speakers generally use too much emotional language and give too many details before getting to the main idea.
The associate director of the writing center, Tammi Conard-Salvo, says international students should look online for materials that explain the kind of writing they will be required to do. They should ask their professors for help. Most colleges have a writing center where they can get free individual help with their work.
Links to writing center materials can be found on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Jim Tedder.
| Studying in the US: Beware of Essay Mills | |
| 22 April 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
We continue our discussion of plagiarism. Last week, we said colleges and universities in the United States define plagiarism as representing another person's work as your own. It is considered a kind of cheating.
Professors at American colleges have tried many ways to stop student plagiarism.
Some use online detection services. They also may discuss plagiarism with their students at the start of every term. Some require their students to turn in early versions of term papers, research papers and essays they are writing. This makes it more difficult for students to buy papers from companies that some call "plagiarism mills" or "essay mills."
A recent report in The Chronicle of Higher Education described such businesses. Many can be found on the Internet. They sell newly written papers on many subjects. The cost depends on the difficulty of the subject and how soon the paper is needed. The cost could be from twenty to forty dollars a page.
Such companies say their writers have advanced degrees, and will target the papers to any educational level. Investigators say the writers may be working in countries like India, Nigeria or Indonesia and are poorly paid. Most of these companies say their work should only be used as models and should not be turned in as a finished work. But students do it anyway.
Some students claim that they order such papers as a way to organize their research. But many also say they do not have enough time to do the work themselves and are under great pressure to do well in school.
University of Notre Dame anthropology professor Susan Blum wrote about this in a new book, "My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture." She writes that academic cheating is a result of communication failure between students and professors. And she says international students must be sure they know the rules of the college they are attending.
Plagiarism may also be a problem in other countries. A recent e-mail to us from Iran described an incident in an English class. Students were supposed to research tourist places in Iran. But one student copied information from a book. The student changed "China" to "Iran" but forgot to change the names of the places. When the teacher asked about his research, he said: "One of the most beautiful tourist places in Iran is Shanghai."
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Barbara Klein.
| Studying in the US: How to Avoid Being Accused of Plagiarism | |
| 15 April 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Plagiarism is the act of representing another person's words or ideas as your own. The offense may be as small as a sentence copied from a book. Or it may be as extensive as a whole paper copied -- or bought -- from somebody else.
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| Journalism students at the University of Maryland discuss ethics and plagiarism in a class in October 2003 |
Teachers can use online services that compare papers to thousands of others to search for copied work. The teacher gets a report on any passages that are similar enough to suspect plagiarism. These services are widely used. Turnitin.com, for example, says it is used in more than one hundred countries and examines more than one hundred thirty thousand papers a day.
Professional writers who plagiarize can be taken to civil court and ordered to pay damages. In schools, the punishment for cheating could be a failing grade on the paper or in the course. Some schools expel plagiarists for a term; others, for a full academic year. Some degrees have even been withdrawn after a school later found that a student had plagiarized.
Accidental plagiarism can sometimes result from cultural differences.
At Indiana University in Bloomington, sixty percent of students who use the Office of Writing Tutorial Services are non-native English speakers. The director, Joanne Vogt, says some have no idea that copying from published works is considered wrong. She says students from China, for example, may think they are insulting readers if they credit other sources. They believe that educated readers should already know where the information came from.
The more you give credit, the less you risk accusations of plagiarism. Any sentences taken directly from a source should appear inside quotation marks. And even if you put those sentences into your own words, you should still give credit to where you got the information.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. More about plagiarism next week. We will also discuss other rules for academic writing in the United States. Earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series are at voaspecialenglish.com -- along with links to some writing resources at American universities. I'm Steve Ember.
| Studying in the US: Coming to Terms With Academic Titles | |
| 08 April 2009 |
Not all college teachers are full professors. Many are assistant or adjunct professors. This week in our Foreign Student Series, we discuss academic titles in American higher education.
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| Adjunct professor Charles Varani at Western Oregon University in Monmouth in 2005 |
A professor with tenure cannot be easily dismissed. Such appointments are permanent. Those hired with the understanding they will seek tenure are said to be "on the tenure track." Assistant professor is the first job on this path.
Assistant professors have five to seven years to get tenure. They must teach, carry out research and publish their findings. Other professors then study the work. If tenure is denied, the person usually has a year to find another job. An assistant professor who receives tenure becomes an associate professor and may later be appointed a full professor.
Professors on the tenure track teach classes, advise students and carry out research. They also serve on committees and take part in community activities.
Other teachers are not expected to do all this. They are not on a tenure track. They are called adjuncts.
An adjunct professor is hired to teach for a limited time, usually one semester. Adjunct professors may have a doctorate. But they receive lower pay than those on the tenure track and have no job security.
The American Association of University Professors says sixty-eight percent of all teacher appointments at American colleges today are adjuncts. College officials say one reason is low budgets. Another is having the freedom to change teachers as courses become more or less popular. They also say part-time adjuncts can provide real world experience for their students.
But the AAUP and other college officials say too many adjuncts mean lower educational quality. They say adjuncts do not have the time or support to help students outside class. And they say fewer tenure track positions mean fewer people to work with students, create new courses and serve on committees.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Shirley Griffith.
| Studying in the US: Alcohol on Campus | |
| 01 April 2009 |
Most American colleges and universities take a spring break. Students might go home to their families -- or spend a week partying on a warm beach with no parents around. That is the popular image, at least.
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| Police ask for students' identifications to search for underage drinkers at a hotel during spring break in Palm Springs, California |
Rules on alcohol differ from college to college in the United States. Many schools require all first-year students to take an alcohol prevention and education program, often given online. Some have a "zero tolerance" policy where alcohol is banned from all buildings. Parents are informed of violations and students may be suspended.
At the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, permission is needed to serve alcohol at any event on campus. But alcohol is banned in first-year dorms -- where most students are under twenty-one anyway.
Susan Davis, a university lawyer, says campus police and local police report underage drinking violations to administrators. The university judicial committee decides punishment on a case by case basis. For example, the committee might suspend or expel a student. It might require an alcohol education program. Or it might just give a warning.
Jon Zug is a prosecutor in Albemarle County, where the university is located. He says international students would face the same punishment as American citizens for underage drinking in Virginia. That includes a fine of five hundred dollars or fifty hours of community service. But first offenders might be given a chance to complete an alcohol education program instead.
Schools have to report legal violations by international students to the Department of Homeland Security. International adviser Richard Tanson at the University of Virginia says even minor violations stay on a student's permanent immigration record. He says international students should know that this can affect them in the future if they try to re-enter the United States.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series can be found at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
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