International Student Survey
Our target audiences: Local students and students who went oversea study in a foreign country.
Our aim: Enable local and international students to get together with each other via interests and from there to form a group and create events and activities. And most importantly make studies in overseas more enjoyable and comfortable.
Research shows that the numbers of international students are increasing as time passed. Which means they are becoming an important part of a society. Let's make Australia as an example. In 2016, for international students in Australia 5% of them are from North-West Europe, 4% are from Southern Eastern Europe, 3% are from North Africa Middle East, 2% are from sub-Saharan Africa, 39% are from north-east Asia, 19% are from southern central Asia, 18% are from south-east Asia, 10% are from Americas and the rest are from Oceania. Compared with 2015, during 2016 international enrolments in Australia rise 11% more[1]. The higher education sector rises 13%. Schools sector rises 14%. In addition, the higher education sector had the largest share of Australia's international students, with 43 per cent.[2]
Based on the survey[3] the top 5 problems the international student are facing is shown as the following:
- Language barrier
- Being far from their support network
- Homesickness
- Feel like an outsider
- Making friends
How can our app help international students overcome those problems?
By using our app users can meet local students or international students who have common interests or hobby, which means the user can practice their communication skill with the locals and being friends with people whom are from their country and talks the same language. From meeting up locals users can overcome the language barrier problem. From meeting up people from the same country users can overcome their homesickness problem since people will get less homesick while they make really good friends from their home country. From meeting up people from the same country who have been in Australia for several years will overcome their problem - feel like an outsider, since they been in Australia for ages they will have understood some Aussie jokes and the way Aussie talks, and due to they also talk in the same language they can explain it well to the users.
References:
https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/international-student-data/pages/default.aspx [1]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-22/record-number-of-international-students-in-australia-in-2016/8291284 [2]
https://goo.gl/forms/ROo6nnJzcV7Kyh6P2 [3]
https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/top-5-challenges-studying-abroad [4]
https://www.gooverseas.com/blog/ways-reduce-homesickness-abroad