Studying Abroad Has anyone done it? I'm thinking of doing my Masters degree abroad somewhere, or maybe, fingers crossed, a PhD Has anyone done anything like this?
You're banter, jokes, humour and intelligence are shockingly bad, are you sure your mum threw away the afterbirth?
I'm sure it'd be class, but I'd think long and hard before going somewhere that didn't speak English. About 75% of my masters course are from overseas, and some of them struggle hard with the language barrier when it comes to reading papers etc.
If it's anything like Liverpool Uni, you might notice it a strange coincidence that they all pass come results day, no matter how inept they are and how much they struggle with the language barrier.. £30k might have something to do with it..
I'd say that more often than not the international students are far more dedicated than any brit students. They might struggle with language barriers in day to day conversation but make up for it in the work they produce, which they work damn hard on. And £30k is a snip compared to some uni's in other countries which are often incredibly hard to get into.
From my experience of Post Grad Chinese and Nigerian students and the shockingly poor level of work they produced on my MSc I'd be inclined to disagree partially... My group work effort was increased about 200% to carry those fuckers through, which in retrospect was a good thing as it built my communication and project mamangment skills up enormously.. and we were proud of them when it all went right - but I'd be pushing it if I said they broke a sweat all year.. Before I left, I looked through the applications from the next intake and was pretty amazed to find that some of the Nigerian applicants had basically gone through the prospectus alphabetically in regards what course they wanted to take ie. one read as his 4 top choices of programmes to study at Liverpool: 1. Civic Design 2. Civil Engineering 3. Classics 4. Clinical Psycology must have been one multi talented guy... and I was reffering to academia in this country being totally bent in that they are willing to pass anyone who will pay international fees to do a postgrad, in comparison to someone like me who busted a gut to get a high grade and still paid £3k for the honour..
Some of our international students are great, no two ways about it, they're pulling 8-8 days in the library every day and throroughly deserve to pass with distinction and go on to PhDs. However, some, and it's a significant proportion, are completely and utterly crap, and I'm not sure how much is work ethic and how much is language barrier - our means of assessment, essays, presentations, group work, rely on communication.....I was proof reading some guys essay the other day for him, and he went for 1 and a half pages without a new sentence. I sat through a presentation the other day that I simply could not understand. I sympathise utterly with them, because my foreign language skills are abysmal, but they must have known what they were letting themselves in for - if you want to write and understand and present internationally competetive research you've got to be fluent before you arrive, and nothing less will do. Still, as I say, the work ethic of some of them would shame a very significant proportion of undergraduates and some postgrads.
From Newcastle. Just went there cos it was part of my degree. Only did one year there, was the best yr of uni though.
I'd prefer an English speaking place, America, I'd love Australia too. I can speak a few languages to a fair level but German is the only one I'd be able to apply to studying science to any reasonable level though I finish my degree this year and want to continue abroad in Biology, specifically genetics. General ideas about costs would be a good start
