W-04 Effects of Short-Stay and Short-Visit Scholarship Programs for Aspiring International Activities of Engineering Students

Abstract

The Japanese Student Services Organization (JASSO) has started its "Short-Stay and Short-Visit scholarship programs (SS-SV programs)" in the academic year 2011. The Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University, has obtained these scholarships for both German and Japanese students in 2011 and 2012. The objective of these "SS-SV programs" is to support students to visit a foreign country and stay there for less than three months. Because of our past experience of the "Two-week Summer School", which has been developed within the cooperation between Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany and Niigata University, Japan since 1996, we experienced that a short term stay in a foreign country works as an initiator for the students' interest and will to study further in foreign countries. The authors believe that this type of short-term exchanges has actually proved to be very effective to encourage the students in engineering fields to start international activities.