Increasing and enhancing student mobility is an integral part of UBD’s internationalization thrusts. In the recently published QS Asia 2017 Ranking, UBD ranks 1st in outbound and inbound student mobility.

Outbound

UBD’s innovative curriculum known as GenNEXT make it compulsory for its students to leave the university during their third year of study to undergo a mandatory year out of the university called Discovery Year, students can choose 1 or 2 out of the 4 activities namely:

     – Student Exchange
     – Internship
     – Community Outreach Programme
     – Incubation Programme

UBD is committed to provide its students international exposure through Discovery Year’s experiential learning. Since the inception of the Discovery Year in 2011, the number of students going abroad has increased steadily. In 2011, 57% of our third year students have left UBD for the Discovery Year. The numbers have increased to 70%, 75% and 80% in subsequent years. Discovery Year brings about numerous benefits to the students such as:

     – It develops self-confidence and thus increasing employability of students
     – It motivates students to be independent
     – It cultivates the appreciation of other culture and religion
     – It encourages students to learn new languages
     – It improves students’ communication and analytical skills

One other notable benefit of Discovery Year is that it enables our students to obtain a better perspective on global issues such as climate change, global warming, food security, youth development than just classroom learning.

Through Discovery Year, UBD sends students to 6 continents spanning over 40 countries and 80 universities from as far as Galapagos in South America to our nearest neighboring Sabah in Malaysia.

There is a diverse range of activities carried out by students during the Discovery Year including building renewal energy-powered cars from scratch, internship in multi-national companies overseas among others.

Inbound

The inbound international student population in UBD has been increasing steadily and significantly over the last ten years from a mere 2% in 2006 to 19% in 2017.

Many students from our partner universities come to UBD to study for a semester or two. During their stay in UBD, they will sit for regular modules with a credit transfer. More importantly, our robust and flexible GenNEXT curriculum allows them to take modules from many faculties as well, which encourages students to develop transdisciplinary knowledge honed throughout their time in UBD.

To encourage active exchange of students, we also take sizeable proportion of international students for our customized credit-bearing summer school programme called Global Discovery Program. This customized program takes place 4-5 times a year where each session having a distinctive unique theme. Students have the opportunity to immense themselves in Brunei rainforest, culture, tradition and rich history of Brunei. They can also learn more about the Brunei Islamic economy, business culture and ethics in Brunei.