Studying abroad has become a staple of the American college experience, and Stevens is working towards increasing the number of international opportunities for students. Being primarily an engineering school, Stevens’ acceptance into the Institution of International Education’s (IIE) Global Engineering Education Exchange (E3) consortium allows more engineering students to study abroad and earn credits for their major-specific courses. The Stute spoke with Susan Rachouh, the Director of International Programs, and she explains how this program will eliminate a lot of the worries engineering students face when it comes to getting their courses approved for a semester abroad.
All of Stevens’ engineering programs incorporate a broader engineering curriculum through the Design Spine. The Design Spine, consisting of eight classes with one taken each semester, prepares all future engineers with the overlapping skills and requirements needed to be successful, regardless of their specialty. However, this is most engineering majors’ main hindrance in traveling abroad for a semester. Currently, engineering students opt to study abroad for winter or summer terms, as they have an extremely hard time taking Design Spine courses elsewhere. IIE Global E3 consortium solves this, as it is a coalition of 70 colleges and universities whose engineering curricula are world renowned, and thus will likely support the type of classes engineering majors at Stevens need to fulfill their requirements.
Stevens’ admission to this consortium has been in the works since 2020. The initial application was submitted to IIE, but due to pandemic-related delays, the next steps after the first round weren’t prioritized until travel became safe again. With operations resuming fully in person again and all the necessary materials submitted, the Office of International Programs finally received a follow-up over this past summer that Stevens had been accepted into this prestigious exchange program. This led to contract negotiations that were finalized a few months later. With contract negotiations out of the way, the next steps would involve relaying the specifics about the different engineering coursework and requirements to IIE. Rachouh stated that for this reason, it will likely take a year before students can travel abroad through this program.
The technical details of how the exchange via this consortium will work is still being figured out. The overall application process will remain largely the same according to Rachouh, but because it is an exchange program, some things work differently compared to other international programs. Since exchanges involve sending out a fairly equal number of students to an institution abroad and having a similar number of students come in, Stevens students participating in exchange programs can still pay their semesterly fees at Stevens directly. This allows all participants of the exchange to continue to receive their financial aid packages while traveling abroad. This added benefit allows students to pursue international opportunities without the added stress of how to finance them. The Director of International Programs hopes that this advancement will be beneficial to the Stevens community and encourage more students to partake in international experiences.
Although the program is not yet ready, Global E3 will connect Stevens to other universities with prestigious engineering curricula and provide students, from other places around the world and Stevens alike, the opportunity to explore the world while continuing their pursuit of engineering.
