Global grads: SDSU international students from 43 countries earn degrees

As Seba Alkandari strolled around campus a few days before flying home to Kuwait, she took stock of her academic journey at San Diego State University.

It’s been her home, on and off, for the past five years, the place where she soaked up surfing classes, overcame doubts about her major, found community in Arabic studies classes and at the International Student Center, navigated pandemic shutdowns, and earned her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering this past May.

Alkandari is among the 249 SDSU international students from 43 countries who received diplomas in spring 2024, including both graduate and undergraduate degrees. That’s on par with the spring 2023 class, which had 251 international graduates.

International students from India made up the largest cohort of graduates, followed by China, Vietnam, Kuwait, and Japan. Computer science, business administration, engineering, and big data analytics were the most popular areas of study.

For Alkandari, this final walk brought back a flood of memories, from her introduction to campus as a young teenager visiting her sister, who studied civil engineering at SDSU, to the camaraderie that blossomed among her senior project peers as they designed an automated chemical wiping system to sanitize surfaces in hospitals without human intervention.

She remembers “the way we helped each other in the lab, even if we were not on the same team or in the same major. The way we held ourselves together and helped other teams.  It was such a journey and I loved it.”

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Alkandari plans to look for a job upon returning to Kuwait, with the hope of working in solar energy. “I would love to apply everything that I have learned here over there,” she said.

While spring marks the traditional graduation season, plenty of students graduate after summer or fall classes as well.  Therefore, spring 2024 graduation numbers are only one snapshot of the success of SDSU’s international students.

Even so, the data provides a glimpse into trends. Here are some highlights.

• Higher Education: Master’s and joint doctoral degrees topped undergrad degrees this spring, with 140 upper-level diplomas handed out compared with 109 undergrad diplomas. For graduate students, degrees related to computer science and big data analytics made up 44% of the total conferred.
• Report Card:  International graduates posted an average cumulative GPA of 3.46. For master’s graduates, the average was 3.7, while undergraduates averaged 3.27. Graduate students typically must maintain a higher GPA to continue in their programs. Compared with spring 2023, this year’s GPA averages were slightly lower for undergrads and slightly higher for graduate students.
• True to Your School: The most popular SDSU colleges for spring 2024 international graduates were the College of Sciences with 69 degrees, the Fowler College of Business with 61, the College of Arts and Letters (including big data analytics) with 48 and the College of Engineering with 31.
• Ascendent Asia:  India accounted for the highest number of international graduates this spring with 102, or 41% of the total. China came next with 22 graduates, followed by Vietnam with 18, Kuwait with 15, and Japan with 13.
• Global view:  Spring 2024 graduates came from all over the world. Included in the 43 countries represented were graduates from Tunisia, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Romania, Nepal, Nigeria, South Korea, the Republic of Georgia, Ecuador, Sweden and Kazakhstan, among many others.

SDSU International Student Center SEVIS Coordinator Barry Fass-Holmes contributed to this report.