This year, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville is hosting 103 international students from 27 different countries.
These students come from all over the globe, bringing with them their own unique cultures and reasons for choosing UW-Platteville.
“I chose UW-Platteville to get to know your different culture,” said Martina Aho, business major and exchange student from Jönköping, Sweden. “Studying and living along with the people of your culture is the best way to have the experience of a lifetime.”
Aho received a pamphlet back in Sweden about exchange programs that named UW-Platteville one of the most attractive campuses for international students. UW-Platteville’s programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are popular fields in foreign countries, according to Aho.
“Platteville was one of the few universities in the states where my school in the Netherlands even has an exchange agreement with,” said Gido Grootenhuis, engineering major from Windensheim, Netherlands.
UW-Platteville continues to see their student exchange numbers grow as the years progress, because of affordablility and safety, according to Donna Anderson, director of UW-Platteville international programs.
“Most other campuses do not offer the experiences that we offer here,” Anderson said.
Every exchange experience is different for each and every student, International Admission Adviser Mahammad Amin said. Exchange students may be faced with some challenges at first, such as culture shock, change in the academic delivery system and even becoming accustomed to the processed, fatty foods. Each student will be faced with their own personal challenge.
“(International) students can overcome these challenges by integrating with students on campus, emerging into the school environment and opening themselves to new learning,” Amin said.
Linda Flath, alumni exchange student from Germany advises new exchange students to help them adjust to UW-Platteville.
“Try to enjoy every single second and do as many things as possible to get to know everything , because your time here is way too short,” Flath said to new exchange students.
Anderson and Amin will be marketing UW-Platteville’s international program in India for two weeks during the Spring 2013. The trip is apart of a new recruitment plan. Anderson and Amin said they hope to reach out to new prospective exchange students. In 2014, Anderson and Amin will travel to Brazil and in 2015 they will travel to China.
“(The recruitment plan) allows us to show students the kind of opportunities we have to offer them here at UW-Platteville,” Amin said. “However, our best recruiters are our very own students.”
For this year’s exchange students Gido’s words of advice were, “travel the country, make a road trip, have fun on the “M” and go to Brothers to check out the wooden shoes from the Netherlands that we donated.”
For more information on the international programs offered here at UW-Platteville, contact International Student and Scholar Services at 342-1852. Students can also learn more at uwplatt.edu/intprog/index.html.
