Over the last decade the University of Illinois Springfield has slowly but steadily increased the number of international students in attendance, reaching 5 percent of the overall student body in graduate studies and working toward the same ratio for undergraduates by the fall of 2012. Almost 63 percent of the 218 international students come from a region near Bangalore, India, to earn graduate degrees in computer science through a special fast track program offered by UIS that allows completion in less than the normal two years.
Shruthi Gennepally from Hyderabad, India, graduates after completing her master’s program this summer and gets to walk on May 14 in the UIS graduation ceremonies. Several of her cousins and an older brother graduated from UIS and she always planned on coming here to do her graduate work.
“This was my first choice. Everyone from my city talks about coming to UIS. I’m totally into computer science and graduated with my bachelor’s in 2007,” she explains. “Mostly there aren’t any changes in lifestyle for me here. I hang around friends from back home, eat the same food and do the same things. After I graduate, I’ll work here for awhile, then return home.”
The article on international students was published in an May 12, 2011, edition of the Illinois Times.
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