Career aspirations and future expectations of international students: Bandırma example

The aim of this study is to examine the relationships between international students' career goals and future expectations and to determine the factors affecting them. In this context, firstly, the validity and reliability study of the Career Goals Scale and Future Expectations Scale for international students was conducted. Whether the leadership, success, education, career goals and future expectations of international students differ with some determined variables was also examined with Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis H tests. The sample of the research consists of international students studying at Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University in the 2022-2023 academic year. According to the findings of the research, it was seen that there was a moderate positive relationship between leadership, education and success goals and future expectations. The analysis made with the gender variable shows that there is a significant difference in favor of male participants in the success sub-dimension. According to the status of receiving a scholarship, there was a significant difference in favor of those who did not receive a scholarship according to Leadership, Success and Educational Goals. In the age variable, the group aged 30 and above differed significantly from the others. While there was no difference in the education level of the parents, there was a difference in the educational goals of non-working fathers. There was a significant difference between their future expectations and their desire to work in Turkey for those who did not want to work. They do not plan to stay in Turkey after graduation. There were no significant differences regarding our other variables, which are parental education level, income level, previous education abroad, place of continuing career, finding a job and working in Turkey. In the research, the reasons for choosing education and the problems they encountered were examined and solutions and suggestions were made. The findings obtained as a result of the research were interpreted in line with the literature and suggestions were made. Keywords: Internationalization, International, Career, Career Goals, Future Expectations