UB Begins Second Program to Prepare Malaysian Students For U.S. Colleges

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo Intensive English Language Institute, which in the 1980s helped prepare more than 1,000 Malaysian students for transfer to U.S. colleges, is once again involved in a transfer-preparation program in Malaysia.

The current program was established in conjunction with Stamford College in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur. Stamford has funded the first year of the project with a $225,357 grant.

The new UB branch campus, which began operations last month, has enrolled 86 students and expects to have nearly 200 enrolled by September in the American Degree Studies Program, a sequence of courses equivalent to the first two years of undergraduate course work in a U.S. college or university.

Although transfer to an American college is not automatic, the graduates will be prepared to begin their junior year abroad and are expected to apply to a broad range of U.S. institutions, including UB, according to Janice A. Nersinger, the UB institute's assistant director for overseas programs.

UB operated a similar, albeit larger, overseas campus, which at its peak employed a faculty of 60, from 1986-91 in connection with the Institut Teknologi MARA (ITM) in Shah Alam, outside of Kuala Lumpur. More than 1,000 Malaysian students completed that two-year preparation program and transferred to U.S. universities.

Nersinger says that since that time, many Malaysian schools followed suit and have continued to exhibit a lively interest in such cooperative preparation programs -- not surprising, she said, given the "exceptional economic development of the nation and the staggering growth of its cities."

Although students who complete the program can transfer into any number of American colleges and universities, Nersinger says that many will transfer to UB because of the school's appeal as a large university with a strong undergraduate base, and because UB has a large number of excellent professional schools.

The Malay government has given priority to the preparation of Malaysian students for transfer to U.S. schools of engineering, she said. Because the country produces a great deal of oil and is undergoing rapid development, Malaysian students who enroll in electrical, mechanical, chemical and petrochemical engineering programs abroad are likely to find employment in the field upon their return.

George Lee, dean of the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, will visit Malaysia soon to help determine the nature of a program appropriate for students who wish to transfer to that school.

The University at Buffalo currently operates more than 50 overseas education programs, including programs in Cambodia, Latvia and Hungary that train only foreign nationals. Several others are in development in Europe and Asia.