Reasons for Few Grad Students In America

When you visit New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, you get a different picture than you would expect. There are two pictures that emerge. At first, you’ll realize that 80 percent of the students at the undergraduate level are citizens of the United States. When you inquire about graduate students, the scenario is quite the opposite. 80 percent of the students at the graduate level are international students. This means that these students hail from countries such as Turkey, Korea, China, and India. Graduate students like the experience of being in a foreign country. Most of them say that the swirl of culture they get to experience is both invigorating and reassuring. A student at this level from Mumbai, India known as Vibhati Joshi reckons that graduate students are comfortable that everyone is experiencing the same struggles. The journey is the same for everyone. He says that the experience at graduate school is quite exciting.

The situation at Tandon School in New York is one of the many cases that are currently happening in America. There are scarce Americans taking the graduate programs. For instance, a survey conducted by the Council of Graduate School in conjunction with Graduate Record Examinations Board discovered that 55 percent of students in graduate programs are foreign students. They take all sorts of courses including Mathematics, engineering, and computer sciences. However, the figure was quite small in other courses such as arts and humanities where the figure was 16 percent. As for the business sector, the number was 18 percent. The situation is serious in the STEM fields where there is a lot of competition. One major area is computer science. This is the course that will act as a ticket to opportunities with companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Google.

An analysis carried out by the Computing Research Association on American and Canadian universities discovered that 68 percent of students taking master’s program in computer science were foreign students. The case was quite different in the undergraduate level where only 9 percent of students were international students. Many factors have been blamed for the gap that currently exists. Most Americans attribute booming technology as the reason why they don’t pursue further studies. For instance, why should an American pursue a masters’ program while there are plenty of opportunities? A computer science professor at the University of Washington known as Edward D. Lazwska says that qualified American students can acquire a job at competitive companies such as Google and Microsoft.