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As noted in the “2008
Open Doors, Report on International Educational Exchange,”
currently only 3.1% of U.S. students studying abroad are engineering
students. Yet, the nature of engineering today all but demands that
engineers are able to collaborate in an international
environment. In the past, most engineering students were forced
to choose between spending their summers in traditional study abroad
programs that were not related to their future academic or
professional careers, or staying within the U.S. and completing
traditional research internships in academia or industry. Although
a domestic internship in your field may be highly relevant to your
future career goals, these opportunities typically do not provide the
international and intercultural skills that are increasingly sought
out by employers.
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International study, research and
internship programs specifically developed for engineering students
help to span this divide and typically provide engineering students
with the best of both worlds – cultural and language study combined
with field-specific courses, research or internships. The
George R. Brown School of Engineering hopes that all engineering
students will consider spending at least one summer of their
undergraduate career abroad through one of the many available
programs.
This year, for the first time, the
Gilman Scholarship Program is piloting a special summer award for
students participating in summer 2010 study abroad programs. To be
eligible, applicants must be majoring in a Science, Technology,
Engineering or Math (STEM) field and must be receiving a Pell grant.
For detailed information see the Pilot
Summer 2010 Award Cycle Fact Sheet and
if you have questions on summer opportunities abroad contact Ratna
Sarkar or the International
Programs office.
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