Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9610061659.C58406-0100000@acs2.bu.edu> Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 17:13:30 -0400 From: Jennifer Marinello <mailto:jmarinel@BU.EDU> Subject: Intellectual Technology Transfer To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Greetings!I am an international student advisor by day, at Boston University and a student of international development at night. As such, I am very interested in the process that I see taking place in my office everyday. I see students from other countries coming to the United States to study and returning home, with information and a piece of official looking paper from a US University.
I am currently working on designing a seminar on re-entry and technology transfer. "Re-Entry" is what International student advisors refer to as the psychological and emotional process of returning home. The seminar will include presentations on current issues in Technology Transfer, but it will also try to give participants information and preparation for what they might expect when they return. All US Universities offer "Orientation Programs" for international students, but fewer schools offer Re-Entry seminars for their students.
For those subscribers to Devel-L who have studied in a foreign country and returned home, I would please like to ask you a few questions. I am particularly interested in responses from subscribers who are from so called, "developing countries" who have studied in countries like the US, the former Soviet Union, Cuba, europe or japan, but anyone is welcome to respond.
SURVEY
1. How has the education you received served you back home? Was it appropriate to the context to which you returned? What types of skills or classes would have better served you, or your countries needs? What about your foreign education has served you well?
2. Was it easy, or difficult to readjust to life in your home country? Did you assume it would be easy and it was not? Had your family or professional circumstances changed? Did people regard you differently? Did they have new expectations for you? (Like financial support)?
3. How do you keep in contact with colleagues and developments in your field? ( I imagine that YOU use the internet, but how difficult is it for people in your country to gain access to the internet)? Do you subscribe to journals? What would help you most to maintain communication between you and your former university and colleagues?
I welcome all LONG personal stories! Please don't be shy :-) I really want to create a seminar for students that will offer good advice. Hopefully my seminar will help students transfer the technology they have studied, by preparing them emotionally and psychologically to return. Also, since US universities depend on the tuition $ of students from all over the world, it is important for them to offer classes that meet their needs. (If I am ever in a position to offer suggestions to the Board of Directors. I will gladly forward your ideas. Of course, I don't anticipate being offered the presidentship any time soon).
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE for responding to my survey. I look forward to your answers. Sometimes my mailbox gets stuffed quickly, so if your answer bounces back, just send it again. Thank you.
Jennifer Marinello Boston University, Center for English Language and Orientation Programs Masters of Education student in the International Educational Development Program. (617)353-7934 phone (617)353-6195 fax