Carl H. Lindner College of Business a Hotbed for International Graduate Students

The University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business is a hotbed for international students seeking a quality graduate program and a place to enhance their business specialty.

The college has seen a strong uptick in graduate program enrollment, with an increase of 91 percent over the past four years, and much of that growth is from international students. Last fall, international students from 17 countries comprised 55 percent of master’s program enrollment.

“We have a solid reputation in India and China,” says Vivek Choudhury, associate dean of Graduate Programs at the Lindner College of Business. “If you look at our international student satisfaction rankings, we are in the top eight as a university.”

The surge in international enrollment, in part, is driven by partnerships with international schools that send their students to Lindner. However, that rise poses a challenge for Lindner faculty and staff to help those students unfamiliar with American culture.

Last year, Lindner’s Graduate Programs office hired one of its students, Rufan Li, as a cultural resource for Chinese students. She’s now a full-time advisor in the Graduate Programs office.

Her position is one of a kind, as no other liaisons are assigned to help students from specific countries, Choudhury says.

Among her accomplishments, Li has started a group in QQ International, the Chinese equivalent of Facebook, to help Chinese students at Lindner connect and share resources. She’s also prepared a guide for incoming Chinese students on topics ranging from how to open a bank account to where to shop around UC.

“The acculturation process is a little harder for the Chinese students, primarily for language reasons and because it’s a very different culture.”

The Lindner College of Business also implemented a two- to three-week language/cultural workshop last fall for all incoming Chinese students without a U.S. degree.

“The goal is to get them comfortable with the American academic system,” Choudhury says.