Pécsett és Debrecenben tanuló külföldi orvostanhallgatók: egyetemválasztási és beilleszkedési kérdések
Foreign students of the medical faculties in Pécs and Debrecen: the choice of the university and acculturation process

Summary/Abstract: With the headway of globalization and knowledge-based economy, international student mobilityis promoted as the main indicator of the internationalization of higher education. In Hungarythe number of foreign students – similarly to global trends – shows an increase, representinga significant economic interest. Besides this, the international students make a growing impacton the development and the economic and cultural life of the cities where the universities arebased.In our empirical research, we analyzed international students at the Medicine, Dentistry andPharmacy foreign language programs of the University of Debrecen and the University of Pécswith the help of personally requested anonymous, self-completed questionnaires (n=602). Theself-developed questionnaire focused on three issues: the motivation of the students, their satisfactionwith the university and the process of their integration. The research was conducted inthe spring semester of the academic year 2015/2016 at both universities.Based on the results it can be stated that from the perspective of medium- and long-termpolicy development of the university and the city, it is indispensable to survey the motivationsand satisfaction of the students arriving to Hungary due to international student mobility aswell as to facilitate their integration. The general medicine major of the University of Pécs andthat of the University of Debrecen are very popular among foreign students but there are significantdifferences in their choices behind which we can discover the different cultural backgroundof the matriculated students and this factor determines their personal choices and their laterplans.Concerning the difficulties at the beginning we can state based on the results that for thestudents of the German programme the different language medium and the local bureaucracymean a bigger challenge, while for the heterogeneous community of the English programmecontact building with the tutors and the integration into the socio-cultural medium mean moredifficulties. Concerning the integration we can state that from the point of country of origin theintegration means a little less challenge for the more homogenies student community of theGerman programme than for the heterogeneous community of the English programme behindwhich most probably the stabilization of the acculturation process can be trailed.

• Details
• Contents