In 2021, the United States maintained its reputation as a destination of choice for international students around the globe. More than 80% of them are pursuing advanced degrees in STEM (Institute of International Education, 2021). Unfortunately, many of these international students come in only to experience loneliness, social disconnectedness, and a crisis of identity the longer they stay in their respective programs. The commitment to diversify and attract international students to US institutions must be followed by a clear understanding of what it takes to support these students. Among the myriad of international students that enter the US for higher education every year, I am particularly interested in the experiences of African international students. Is their performance in US higher education exclusively tied to their educational backgrounds or does it stem from a motivation to succeed in a different environment despite the odds? What might we learn about how engineering is taught in their home countries? In this study, I attempt to address these questions by designing a comparative case study using mixed methods, theoretically informed by culturally relevant pedagogy surrounding two contexts. This study poses the question of culture as an integral intrinsic aspect of learning, leveraging a socio-psychological framework to help understand how students receive support from their instructors to excel in engineering. In this presentation, I discuss emerging results of my studies investigating culturally relevant engineering education in Nigeria.