AUCA provides unique opportunities to spend semester in USA, Turkey and Europe

September 22, 2014

 

 

High standards of education this is one the main priorities of American University of Central Asia. Beside that fact that AUCA focus attention on Liberal Arts direction and provides unique courses, university has partnership with 14 universities all over the world. Every semester more than 20 students spend exchange semester out of Kyrgyzstan.

              

Ilias Mamadiyarov is curator of AUCA exchange programs. He is responsible not only for AUCA students who are nominated to spend semester in other countries, but also for that students who are coming to Kyrgyzstan to spend semester at AUCA.

 

Exchange programs are unique in that they give students the opportunity to study in another country, learn the culture of a people, learn a foreign language, as well as to meet with people from different cultural backgrounds, with different cultural values. This, in turn, helps students to see the world from a different angle, to talk about things in a different way. In short, taking part in the exchange program, the student is formed as an adult, thus acquiring an exceptional cultural and academic experience of living and studying abroad.

I think that sending students to study in another university in another country is considered to be a very important step in the life of students. Of course, this experience has a positive effect on the subsequent formation of the person.

 

There are several decisive factors that we take into the account before we sign an inter-university agreement on collaboration.  These are the reputation of the school on a global scale, the marks the school has for being more international, in terms of academic and students, the quality of university’s social science departments and existence of specific university’s international collaboration. 

 

The procedure for selecting the students for exchange program is rather simple.  AUCA Study Abroad Committee, the committee which consists of AUCA administration and faculty staff, evaluate the application of the student willing to participate in the exchange and nominates him/her as an exchange student to our partner university. The applications are evaluated based on the following criteria:

 

Statement of purpose – 40%

Cumulative GPA       – 40%

Two letters of recommendation (preferably from AUCA lecturers) – 20%

(10% for each recommendation letter)

 

The student who scores the highest in the selection process is automatically nominated for an undergraduate exchange program.

 

Usually, a student who demonstrates:

 a) good academic standing

 b) motivation,

c) seriousness of purpose

d) ability to take initiative

e) communication skills

f) social maturity and

g) adaptability get to be nominated as exchange student.   

 

The decision to choose an exchange university should be, as a rule, correlated with specific academic and personal interests of a student.  For instance, a student interested in French culture and language, should try to apply to AUCA partner schools such as University of Montreal and Science Po Paris, the institutions that both offer courses in French.

As a matter of fact, students face many academic and non-academic challenges when undertaking an exchange.  A wide spread problem of an academic nature is the absence of appropriate courses  offered at our partner schools that an AUCA student must sign up for in order to graduate on time from his/her Department.  Yet, the problem is acute essentially because the predominant amount of courses offered at certain AUCA partner schools fall in the category of what we refer to as GenEd courses.  Therefore, a student who has already covered his/her GenEd requirements may run a risk of wasting electives when embarking on an exchange at the university which offers only GenEd courses.  

A common problem of non-academic nature that many AUCA students-participants of an exchange encounter is the lack of sufficient funds to undertake the exchange.  However, even this issue is circumvented given the student searches hard for financial support.  For instance, AUCA Student Intellectual Life Committee (SILC) has been funding AUCA exchange students on numerous occasions covering their travel costs, accommodation, living and other expenses.

 

I believe one of the biggest challenges and at the same time advantages of being a coordinator of exchange programs is the sense of responsibility that you bear in front of visiting exchange students.  More specifically, sometimes the exchange students who visit AUCA and generally Kyrgyzstan travel for the first time abroad.  The absence of knowledge of Russian language and cultural subtleties of Central Asia often time turns such category of students into a vulnerable group of people. Therefore, in the capacity of a person who serves as the primary in-country contact for such individuals, I try to insure that exchange students stay aware of cultural subtleties of living and studying in Central Asia. 

 

For Fall 2014 semester, we have exchange students coming from South Korea, USA, France and Canada.  As a matter of fact, AUCA provides various types of support to exchange students.  We do our best in helping exchanges to find accommodation in Bishkek, inviting them to various types of cultural events so as they have a chance to learn Central Asian culture and traditions.  Furthermore, depending on the agreement with specific partner university, AUCA provides additional services to exchanges. For instance, we have an agreement with Bard College to take Bard exchanges at AUCA to different sorts of cultural trips to various historical and recreational sites in Kyrgyzstan^

Song-Kol, Issyk-Kul, Osh.

 

 

 

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