Until this week, 12 Peruvian engineering students had never set foot on the University of Central Florida campus, but on Saturday they will graduate as full-fledged Knights in a first-of-its-kind international partnership for the university.<\/p>\n
The extraordinary program through UCF\u2019s College of Engineering & Computer Science began two years ago in partnership with the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola in Lima, Peru, and is graduating its inaugural cohort \u2013 seven men and five women.<\/p>\n
Charles Reilly, associate dean for the College of Engineering & Computer Science, hopes this will be the first of many groups of international students to earn a bachelor\u2019s in industrial engineering from UCF in their home country. While other UCF programs provide courses abroad, this is the first program that offers all upper-level classes for a major in a foreign country.<\/p>\n
Students such as Valeria Laynes jumped at the chance to receive her engineering degree from an American university.<\/p>\n
\u201cUCF\u2019s professors practically brought UCF to us,\u201d said the 20-year-old industrial engineer, student athlete (she plays basketball at USIL) and employee of IBM. \u201cI am really overwhelmed. I cannot express how happy I am to be graduating from this university.\u201d<\/p>\n
The students will arrive on campus beginning on Wednesday and Thursday and for the first time will walk the halls thousands of Knights see daily. On Friday, they will officially tour the campus, and on Saturday, they will receive their degrees along with 3,500 other graduates at summer commencement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible group of very bright, very dedicated students,\u201d Reilly said. \u201cThe fact that all 12 are coming for commencement, I\u2019m blown away. It\u2019s fantastic how proud they are to be UCF Knights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four years ago, USIL\u2019s former president reached out to Reilly and suggested a meeting and an idea. His country was in need of industrial engineers. Could his university work with UCF to graduate industrial engineering students in an international program?<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first reaction was, \u2018He has got to be kidding,\u2019\u201d Reilly said.<\/p>\n
But then, USIL\u2019s leader detailed the university\u2019s other partnerships: Broward College in Ft. Lauderdale offers an associate of arts degree; the University of South Florida in Tampa offers a bachelor of science in business administration, and the University of Houston has a bachelor of science in hospitality management.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, it became very possible. I realized that Broward would teach all the lower-level courses we needed, things like composition, calculus and science. All we had to worry about was the upper level engineering classes. It could be done just working within our college. That\u2019s when it became a very real possibility,\u201d Reilly said.<\/p>\n
It took two years to work out the details, financials, permissions and logistics with the Lima university and UCF\u2019s regional accreditation agency. USIL\u2019s Center for Global Education was attractive because it emphasizes a fully bilingual education with program-specific courses in English.<\/p>\n
USIL\u2019s bilingual students received their associate degrees from Broward College, then transferred to UCF and finished their core UCF courses in industrial engineering at CGE.<\/p>\n
In the spring of 2015, UCF held its first class at USIL. The commitment of USIL\u2019s new leadership and the center\u2019s director and staff made what seemed like just a dream into a UCF opportunity, said Reilly.<\/p>\n
No engineering program is for the easily dissuaded. One course each semester was offered as distance-learning by a UCF faculty member. Six of the face-to-face courses were offered in an accelerated format so UCF faculty could teach them in Lima during summer break.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe program was hard,\u201d acknowledged Laynes. \u201cWe had no time to sleep. All we did was study, read chapters, do our homework \u2013 and about half of us play sports \u2013 it was overwhelming. We had to learn how to organize ourselves, work together. But we did it.\u201d<\/p>\n
UCF industrial engineering faculty traveled to Lima to teach nine engineering courses required in the program. USIL also hired qualified, English-speaking engineering faculty who meet UCF requirements to teach nine other courses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese students perform like American honors students,\u201d Reilly said. \u201cThey are very driven, engaged. As a result, our faculty couldn\u2019t be more excited to teach them. We were trying something new, but our faculty love doing it and were treated very well by the students and USIL.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jorge Flavio Sarmiento, 21, said he plans on going to UCF for his master\u2019s, probably next year. \u201cIt\u2019s been a very good experience for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But for now, he can\u2019t get to UCF fast enough. He\u2019s making the trek from Lima to Orlando with his mother and aunt, whom he said \u201care so excited and very proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI visited Orlando three times in my life, but never went to the UCF campus,\u201d Sarmiento said. \u201cI realize that in doing this international program, I have perhaps missed the whole student-life experience. I want to live, for at least a few days, a slice of that student life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reilly said he hopes this is the first of many other opportunities with USIL and other international partners.<\/p>\n
Laynes has another suggestion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think UCF should send their students here to Peru,\u201d she said. \u201cThis way they can relate more with us and see our culture. They could see that while it is really different here, we want to work as hard as they do. The 12 of us, we are really eager to show the world all that we have learned at UCF.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waldemar Karwowski, chair of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems at UCF, agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cValeria\u2019s suggestion is a good one. We would like to see reciprocal student exchanges between Lima and Orlando,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And, having worked closely with the Peruvian students, he thinks UCF could take it even further.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother goal is to have multinational teams of students working together on their senior engineering design projects,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
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