Socio-Cultural Adaptation of International Students of Master Programme "Information and Electrical Engineering" at Hochschule Wismar

Global trends in modern economics emphasize higher education internalization. As a means of higher education internalization, Master programme "Information and Electrical Engineering" for international students at Hochschule Wismar (Germany) has been implemented since 2016. However, socio-cultural adaptation of international students of Master programme "Information and Electrical Engineering at Hochschule Wismar has not been analysed. The purpose of the work is to analyse theoretically and empirically socio-cultural adaptation of international students underpinning elaboration of a new research question. The research methodology comprises the study of the meaning of the key concepts of "international students", "adaptation", "social adaptation" and "socio-cultural adaptation". The case study research was applied. The empirical study was carried out at Hochschule Wismar in 2016-2018. Observation served as the basis for data collection. The findings of the empirical study allow concluding that culture norms and values of international students and educators of Master programme "Information and Electrical Engineering" at Hochschule Wismar are different. Directions of further research are proposed. The novel contribution of the paper is the newly formulated research question.