Destination Par Excellence For Indian Aspirants

- Pritha Roy Choudhury

The British rule of almost two centuries has left such a lasting impression that Indian students continue to be attracted to study the English language and take up courses in the land of the famed universities of Oxford and Cambridge. This is evidenced by the fact that over 160,000 Indian students have studied in the United Kingdom in the last 10 years and the number of visas issued to Indian students shows a gradual growth every year. “We have a lot of opportunities for Indian students because we are working with the industries and we define our project with industry inputs,” says Dr. Hessam Ghasemnejad of Centre for Structures, Assembly and Intelligent Automation, Cranfield University.

For Indian students, popular subjects continue to be business and engineering but there is increased interest in subjects like biological sciences, law, architecture, building and planning. There is also an increasing interest in humanities and social science subjects as well.

Programmes designed for students

Universities in the United Kingdom are making constant initiatives to attract Indian students. Tom Birtwistle, Director, North India, British Council, says, “Universities in the United kingdom are designing new courses to reflect how the world is changing around us. Students can now pick from courses as diverse as Digital Futures, Computer Games Design to Environmental Design, Neuroscience or an Entrepreneurship MBA. You can even do a Master’s Degree in Contemporary India. If an Indian student has a particular academic passion, we can say with some confidence that there’ll be a UK university that caters to it.”

Specialized courses