Abstract:

Internationalization, as a global trend of social development and growth, initiates the migration of people, goods, and services all over the world. For higher education institutions, internationalization creates possibilities for students to participate in mobility and exchange programs and learn from others, outside the known local environment where they originally study. International mobility ensures experience and knowledge exchange between students coming from different cultures and environments and enables them to cope with the unknown, out of their comfort zone. Students also have the possibility to work with and learn from international lecturers, professionals, and scientists. They gain new soft skills and improve communication, language, and inter-cultural skills, and therefore are better prepared for future work life. It is a unique opportunity for students to evolve, both personally and professionally.

Universities engage many efforts on the motivation of students to use opportunities and possibilities mobility programs offer. Thereby, a smooth and clear credits recognition process, earned in a semester (or a year) abroad, plays a crucial role and simplifies the decisions to apply and really go through with the mobility.

In this paper, we present our experience of motivating students to apply for exchange programs and supporting them throughout the process, starting with the application and ending with credits recognition when they return to the home university. The experience is presented as a process model, showing activities, supposed to be done, in a formalized way, enriched with specific unformal efforts, which additionally frame the international exchange procedure and make it work.

Lessons learned are presented as concluding remarks, in order to demonstrate the benefits of the presented exchange procedure and give guidance of do-s and don’t-s in managing student international mobility.

Keywords:

Internationalization, mobility, process model.