K-State ChemE Department has International Feel

As our politicians weigh in on the topic of immigrants and immigration, it’s appropriate to clearly state how important our foreign students and immigrants are to the research and education missions of the K-State chemical engineering department.

Our department seeks to provide a world-class education for its students and to conduct impactful research. For this reason, we hire outstanding chemical engineers from throughout the world. Our faculty and staff is highly international, with faculty and instructors originally from Nigeria (Amama), Japan (Hasegawa), China (Liu), Germany (Pfromm) and India (Suresh). These individuals provide students with diverse views of chemical engineering, and prepare them for careers that will likely involve working on international teams and assignments.

Our graduate program is also highly international: 85 percent of our current doctoral students come from outside the United States. Our current graduate students come from China, Iraq, Bangladesh, Iran, Russia and Cost Rica. We recruit internationally to increase the applicant pool, and to meet our needs in research and teaching. These individuals are essential to our program. Students are attracted to the educational quality, cutting-edge research and employment opportunities that open up with a K-State graduate degree. People from all over the world apply to our program and the department admits only the very best.

Foreign students also are an important part of our undergraduate program and have increased in number in recent years. In the academic year 2016-2017, just over 10 percent of undergraduate students are non-domestic. This includes students from China, Kuwait, Malaysi, Saudia Arabia, the Bahamas, Paraguay, Korea, Sweden and Sri Lanka. This diversity provides students with multiple opportunities to interact with students from different cultures, preparing them for a career in an increasingly global world. Meanwhile, the chemical engineering department offers foreign students a strong fundamental education in chemical engineering that prepares them for diverse careers either in the United States or in their home countries.

Esther Radaha, an undergraduate from Malaysia, commented on the differences she’s noted on the education she’s received at K-State versus how she was previously taught:

“The biggest difference would probably be the fact that there's no one fixed answer. There are multiple ways of solving a problem and as long as it is proven well, it is accepted. This encourages one to think outside the box and to understand a problem well. Back home, there's only one right answer and other methods are not accepted, despite being supported well.”

Many of our foreign-born graduates choose to stay, live and work in the United States. These are highly skilled individuals who greatly contribute to the economy of the United States. They also contribute to its culture.

To quote K-State President Richard Myers, “To our K-State international community: You are invaluable members of this university. Your contributions enrich our experiences, knowledge and ability to view the world through a global lens. We cannot achieve our goals without a diverse population that includes international students, faculty and staff.”

We couldn’t agree more!