Get acquainted with the Indonesian International Student Mobility Award (IISMA)

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The Indonesian International Student Mobility Award (IISMA) is in great demand by students. Private universities, in one period, can send 24 students to join this program. Scholarships with the very competitive competition; what exactly is IISMA, and how is it?

In the talk show, casual chat, held regularly by the International Program of Communication (IPC) of the Communication Department, Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII), Teatime, reviews questions about IISMA. Inviting Dr. rer. nat. Dian Sari Utami, Director of Partnership of International Affair UII. She thoroughly discussed IISMA. The event held on March 5, 2022, was titled “Let’s Find out IISMA” and hosted by Arsila Khairunnisa, an international class Communication Student (International Program).

Knowing Perspective, Culture, and Global Academic Climate

The aim of initiating the IISMA program is to send Indonesian students to study abroad to open a global perspective and find out the academic situation of Indonesian students. “So that the students have a global perspective, global culture, and global academic culture. If they return they can apply what they learned abroad, to develop Indonesia,” explained Dian.

Dian emphasized that this program is student mobility, not transfer credit. You must only convert courses with a certain number of credits to courses at the home campus. And The Former University will write the courses taken in the IISMA program as they are in the grade transcript. “This has the consequence that students will lose one semester at their home campus. And still, have to take all the required courses,“ said Dian.

“Except, if you take courses related to compulsory courses that you have to take at your home campus. The course grades at the destination campus can be transferred,” he added.

Even so, this program recommends that students take courses completely different from the majors taken at their home university. “We at IISMA highly recommend taking a completely different subject. Why? Because we want you to enrich perspectives from different disciplines. You will also have many competencies that can be developed,” said Dian, finally explaining the goals and expectations of the IISMA program.

As previously reported, one UII Communication student from the International Program (IP) class passed the IISMA program. Nadira Muthia Supadi, a class 2018 student, joins the IISMA program and studies at the University of Leeds, England, in 2021.