Indonesia is a milestone destination in the Asiatic Continent for university students from neighboring countries who want to specialize and acquire superior certifications and study degrees. According to recent stats, about 3,000 foreign students reach Indonesian universities each year to complete and upgrade their study careers. Most of the foreign students come from Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. However, Thai students seem to enjoy a deep familiarity with the local culture better than students from other countries.
The Growing Phenomenon of Thai Students in Indonesia
As a result, Thai students in Indonesia are increasing. Another favorable factor to this trend is that the Indonesian government releases scholarships annually, boosting the number of Thai students in the country. A common scholarship implies that the student would return to Thailand and work in the local offices of the corporate entity that released the scholarship. This network between universities, government, and corporate entities contributes to increasing the phenomenon of Thai students in Indonesia.
Along with scholarship programs, Indonesia is also investigating the world of academic life to help Thai students achieve their best results overcoming all difficulties due to staying away from family, living in a foreign place, and facing study and exams. Many students look for free-time entertainment to break with the routine. Since they don’t have much time to go around, their preference is for online casinos with appealing welcome bonus offerings to collect through a quick click here. Such casinos offer high-level security measures, the top-newest game titles, and 24/7 customer service in multiple languages. Easy, portable, at a fingertip for everyone at any time.
The Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta’s Program
One of the main programs to help Thai students integrate with Indonesian academic life is the Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta research program. The initiative studies the individual experience of Thai students in Indonesia who attend Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta.
The research focuses on Thai students’ opinions on several aspects of their life as university students in Indonesia, ranging from accommodation issues, perception of the local culture, most relevant difficulties, and more. The research adopts a hermeneutical phenomenologic approach to the problem, trying to individuate and analyze the nature of the academic experience in Indonesia from the point of view of Thai students.
The phenomenologic approach is the main inspiration for the Muhammadiyah Surakarta program, which aims to investigate students’ experiences and help them understand their position in Indonesia. The objective behind the initiative is to understand human experiences captured through language and within the context.
Insight Into the Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta’s Program
The research conducted by the Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta has enrolled a group of researchers who have to interview Thai students at the English Department at the same university. The researcher asks questions, such as “How do Thai undergraduate international students live their academic experience at Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta?”. Behind the research, there’s the goal to identify veritable life experiences through a phenomenologic approach. After this phase, the research aims to understand the phenomenon explored through the Thai participants and their experiences.
We want to resume the results of the Muhammadiyah Surakarta’s program in two main points:
1) Thai students can integrate with individual tasks assigned by lecturers. These tasks help build a team within the class of students.
2) In bilingual classes (English and Bahasa), Indonesian students show to help their Thai classmates understand the teaching materials.
The researchers’ approach developed three interpretational phases: the first phase aims to explicate initial themes, the second phase aims to discuss the themes within the group of researchers and the research supervisor, and the third phase consists of selecting and reducing the themes. The last stage of the research involves a further checking of the collected materials to produce a later interpretation and confirmation of the themes agreed upon.
Conclusion
The research group at Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta has conducted a program focusing on the growing phenomenon of Thai students completing their academic journey in Indonesia. The research has focused on their life experience, from accommodation to language gap, and highlighted that interaction with local students is fundamental for Thai undergraduates to gain a better understanding of the teaching materials and lessons. While individual tasks assigned by lecturers help integrate Thai students within the academic reality, the direct interaction with Indonesian classmates results in boosting their skills to complete the given tasks.
The research shows that further study on individual academic experiences should be encouraged in every university in Indonesia, especially in English and Foreign Language Departments, to understand their condition and work to offer a better academic environment to help them accomplish their goals.
