Study abroad in International Branch Campuses: A survey on students' perspectives

As an illustration of major structural changes led by the internationalization in Higher Education, International Branch Campuses are increasingly encouraging new types of cross-campus mobility. This paper will present a case-study on mobile students experiencing international academic exchange across different campuses of Monash University, an Australian institution located in Australia, Malaysia and South Africa. By opting for an Inter-Campus Exchange program, students can experience study abroad in a specific way: being immersed in another country, they nevertheless remain in a familiar academic context. Based on online questionnaires, this paper investigates the benefits and the challenges that these students perceived. Similarities and differences of perceptions issued by students enrolled in other forms of study abroad are explored. Findings suggest that for students, ICE programs are different mainly in terms of academic adjustments, culture shock and linguistic improvement from which implications are discussed.