Abstract

This Capstone examines the experiences of international students at North Lake College who are considered as reverse transfers - students who attend community college after having attended four-year institutions. As these students have taken a route which is considered reverse in a general sense of the word, they are called reverse transfers. North Lake College is one of the seven Dallas District Community College in Irving, Texas. Irving has a large number of international students from Asia, Africa and South America. My research question is: What are the experiences of international students as reverse transfer students at North Lake College, and what are the implications of these experiences for the students and the college? It also touches on cultural adjustment issues these students face as reverse transfers and discusses students' expectations from the International Student Advisors. The study is based on a reverse transfer phenomenon from the students' frame of reference. My research shows that international students are highly mobile and are not much different than domestic reverse transfers in locating what they need and how to get it. The overall experiences that they have cited about being reverse transfers are positive. If they are supported, the community colleges can benefit significantly from this population in terms of diversifying the college and generating revenue. This capstone raises several important issues in the field of International Education: 1) there is a complete lack of research on international reverse transfer students 2) this lack has thus affected these students 3) that there is an urgent need to reassess what infrastructural changes need to be done in institutional and state level to better deal with the increasingly diverse students at community colleges.

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