ISU builds its global reputation

AMES, Iowa — On a warm Saturday in August, Sameer Mohd was lost in Ames. He was just two miles from his dorm, but more than 7,000 miles from home.

Originally from New Delhi, India, it was just Mohd’s third day in the United States. He stood outside McDonald’s on Duff Avenue needing to get back to campus, but he had no idea how to get there. He approached a couple of strangers and asked them for directions to Buchanan Hall. The strangers pointed him down the right path, and just minutes later they pulled up in their car and offered him a ride.

“Some people had told me not to accept such rides, but I said ‘yes,’ and they took me straight to Buchanan,” Mohd said. “People are really helpful here.”

Mohd is just one of many new faces in Ames this fall.

Iowa State University enrolled a record-breaking 3,017 international students. The number is up 520 from last year and beats the previous record of 2,692 set in 1993.

James Dorsett, director of International Students and Scholars, said the large increase in international enrollment at ISU stems from a combination of factors.

First, he said, despite America’s current financial woes, countries such as China and India have experienced significant economic growth the last couple of years.

“You have many more people with disposable income — income to invest in the education of their children,” Dorsett said. “So, what they’re doing is they’re sending them to the United States.”

He said other reasons for ISU’s international popularity include its reputation for safety, a wide selection of in-demand majors and a “conditional admission” policy that allows students to enter a degree program even if they don’t have the required English language proficiency.

The international students program at ISU also actively recruits these students by sending representatives to schools around the world. This, Mohd said, was how he was introduced to the university.

At an education fair sponsored by the United States Educational Foundation in India, Mohd’s eyes lit up as an ISU representative told him about the university’s aerospace engineering program.

“That pretty much convinced me,” Mohd said. “There aren’t many good schools for aerospace engineering in India.”

After receiving several scholarships and encouragement from his mother, Mohd hopped aboard a plane to the United States, where he is now enjoying his first semester at ISU.

Mohd said he already has had the opportunity to meet with several engineering companies, including Boeing and Rockwell-Collins, and has started creating a model rocket for one of his classes.

He said these kinds of hands-on projects and applications are what made ISU stand out to him, and he thinks it will give him an advantage over his peers studying in India.

“I’m not criticizing or anything, but in India you have to be in books all the time,” he said. “Here it’s a more practical approach.”

Though academics take up a lot of his time, Mohd said he is trying to be involved in as many extracurricular activities as he can. He is an international student ambassador, and he enjoys playing matches with the ISU Cricket Club.

Nearly two months after his plane touched down, Mohd said he feels like he has grown accustomed to his new home — although there were some difficulties in crossing over to the American culture at first.

“The food here is not spicy at all,” Mohd said. “I went to different stores, and they said on the package that it’s ‘red hot’ and all that. I had it, and it was pretty mild.”

Mohd said that besides missing his mom’s home cooking, another big shift has been moving from a city of more than 14 million residents to a town with a population of just over 50,000 — but he said it’s a welcome change.

“This is the ideal place for me, actually,” he said. “I’m always the person who wants to be away from all the noise of the city and all that.”

Mohd said he isn’t sure yet whether he will return to India or remain in the United States upon graduation, but he said it has always been his dream to design Air Force One. He said he knows he has many challenges to overcome before anything that big can happen, including braving his first Iowa winter.

“All of my friends keep telling me how bad it’s going to be,” Mohd said. “I’ve never even seen snow before.”

Mohd said he misses his friends and family in India, but he feels the community has been very welcoming to him. He said he’s had no trouble making American friends, and it doesn’t bother him that he is only one of 55 Indian undergraduate students at ISU.

“I have met Indians all my life,” Mohd said. “I’m here to meet the Americans and to learn more about a different culture.”

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