The Impact of Internationalisation towards Student Learning with Regards to Undergraduate Engineering Students

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of the impact of internationalisation towards the undergraduate engineering students’ learning at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) through close collaboration between UKM with the University Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Germany. Since the year 2003, the double degree program of UKM-UDE especially in the engineering field has been offered to the undergraduate engineering students in UKM. Up until now, as many as 90 UKM engineering students have furthered their studies in various engineering fields offered in UDE. Apart from that, the number of German students (from UDE) interested to participate in academic exchange to UKM has been on the increase. In 2011, 20 German students from UDE enrolled in UKM in the first semester of the academic session 2011/2012. This significant improvement has reflected the fact that UKM is now becoming one of the selected knowledge destinations for international students, including from Europe. This paper also discusses the positive development of student learning in UKM, affected by the presence of German students on UKM engineering campus.