INTERNATIONAL ROMANIAN STUDENTS MIGRATION PATTERNS - A SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS STUDY

Abstract

Although it is not a new phenomenon,
study migration in Romania has been until recent out of
the focus of social researcher's interest. Before the
revolution of 1989, the direction of study migration was
from other countries to Romania, as the Romanian
faculties, especially the medicine ones; international
students, mainly from Arabic countries appreciated the
education offered in Romania. After the revolution,
study migration patterns changed and new relations
emerged.
Our article main goal is to present a situation of the
international Romanian students, according to the
European statistics and the official Erasmus programme
statistics.
Using Social Network Analysis, we are building maps
to study migration patterns, from 2008 until 2013, in an
attempt to understand what lies beyond the motivation
of Romanian students when they choose a certain
country to study abroad.
The results of our study show that there is a clear
trend for Romanian students to choose some countries
to study in; results that partially confirm the theory
behind the study migration, but more research needs to
be done and Romanian statistics need to be updated in
order to offer a real perspective of this phenomenon.