Campus Globalization Initiatives Aimed at Developing Engineers Capable of Working on the World Stage

Abstract

NIT, Ube College has been selected for the Global Engineer Project and has been implementing global education, especially for the lower grades of the first through third year, since the 2019 academic year. However, NIT, Ube College has already been conducting mutual exchanges of faculty members and students through academic exchange agreements with overseas educational institutions for more than a decade. In 2018, before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, there were 105 students who received language training and specialized experiments and practical training at overseas partner schools during summer and spring long vacations, and 59 short-term international students from those schools. However, there are a significant number of students who are not active in activities conducted both on and off campus, and the challenge is how to involve such students. What we have tried to do is to globalize the campus, and I would like to introduce three initiatives that we have implemented during the past two years of pandemic. The first was to provide online language training and overseas training, and position it as an official course for which credit can be granted. In addition, online English conversation classes were made available to students who wished to take them. The second is the “Global Engineer Lecture Series,” in which alumni with overseas work experience give lectures online. In FY2021, five lectures were held. The third is the implementation of after-school English conversation classes utilizing foreign faculty members and long-term international student tutors, in which many students in lower grades participate, leading to an increase in the level of globalization on campus.