All You Ought to Know About Studying Abroad

Our today’s world is increasingly becoming more and more competitive. To cope with the present dynamics of this competitive world, a quality education is much more necessary. For students in developing world, studying abroad is an opportunity, which allows them to gain quality education and to earn degree from prestigious universities. Furthermore, students also learn about different culture, language, history and adaptive skills. These hard earned skills and degrees enable them to compete in their own market and help their countries in upgrading their knowledge base. Also, these courses are an important tool to increase people-to-people exchange and develop diplomatic relations at macro-level.

Thus, it is important to understand every aspect of studying abroad. Typically, a student can go abroad for any level of education – primary, secondary and higher education. But as in the majority of cases students take decision to go for undergrad and postgrad courses, we will focus on information regarding these courses.

Requirements for studying abroad

Students who are planning to go abroad for studying should carefully check requirements. Note that there are two types of requirements: general requirements and then there are requirements which are related to the particular course a student is planning to pursue.

1.      Scores from Professional courses
Depending upon the education level being pursued, students will have to submit scores from professional courses. For undergraduate programs, students are normally asked to submit SAT score, while for post-graduate programs students are asked to submit GRE (for sciences and humanities) or GMAT (for management studies) score.

Along with the above general aptitude tests, language fluency tests are also required. There are mainly two tests in this category – IELTS (accepted widely in the UK and Europe) or TOEFL (accepted widely in the US). Note that language fluency tests are considered more important as a good score means easier adaptation for a student in a foreign environment.

Additionally, for certain higher courses (mainly in life sciences), universities ask for subject GRE scores as this helps panel members in benchmarking student’s knowledge level with American students.

2.      Scholarships and Funding
Studying abroad is most likely a costly affair. A typical student has to take care of tuition fees, accommodation cost, sustenance cost, and travel cost. Aspiring students can apply for scholarships sponsored by universities or private funders. These scholarships are very competitive. If you are planning to study in Europe, there’s a great opportunity to compete for a scholarship offered by the European Erasmus Programme in which more than 200.000 students are taking part annually. For more information we recommend to read this article elaborating on the Erasmus Programme. Remember that your performance in your school is not the only factor to determine for scholarship. Panel members look for students who have been performing well consistently, have good scores in above-mentioned tests and have a goal in life.

3.      Faculty
It is very important to gather as much information about faculties as possible. Go to online forums to find out whether the concerned faculty teaches well or not.

4.      Travel preparation
While preparing for your trip, make sure not to forget the following things:

• Passport
• Insurance documents
• Duly issued air tickets
• Invitation letter from the university
• Excess currency at least to the tune of two months sustenance bills
• Arrange accommodation beforehand

Author bio: Jeff is a motivated undergraduate student who works as a freelance writer at SolidEssay.com, which is a research paper writing service helping students structure and format their research work.

Improve your job prospects by studying abroad

Many students are worried about how they will find a job in this gloomy economic climate. There’s no need to be despondent though. There are many jobs available for graduates and others, but it is a challenging job market. If you’re about to start studying, you need to think about how to give yourself a strong competitive edge. Something that’s worth considering is studying abroad, or at least participating in a foreign exchange programme. This may sound a strange way to go about improving your future career prospects, but there are a number of compelling reasons why you should consider this approach.

International knowledge
By choosing to study abroad, you will increase your international knowledge. You will learn about another country’s history, economy and social structure. And perhaps most importantly of all, you will have the opportunity either to learn a new language or improve on the language skills you already have. Employers are very keen to recruit multilingual staff, so this will stand you in good stead when job hunting.

Learning about new cultures
Every country has its own customs and ways of doing things. Learning about these customs can be very interesting and it can also equip you for future interviews. Not only does it give you something interesting to discuss in interview, it also reassures the recruitment team that you are flexible and adaptable which are key skills in today’s job market.

International teamwork
Many businesses are multi-national and have staff employed all around the world, as well as clients from many different continents. Even smaller companies are likely to employ people from all walks of life and their customers are equally likely to come from varied backgrounds. The fact that you have immersed yourself in another country’s culture will demonstrate that you are someone who will work well with all different kinds of people from different cultures.

Being open-minded
Everyone says that travel broadens the mind and it’s true. By studying abroad, you will be exposed to new ideas and new ways of thinking and doing things. Sometimes, you might be exposed to quite challenging experiences which require you to examine your own patterns of thinking. A foreign exchange can provide you with the opportunity to become more independent and worldly wise. Employers will find your independence refreshing and reassuring.

So, before you finally decide where to study, give some serious thought to studying abroad or participating in the student exchange programme from Erasmus. In order to be eligible, you have to do a Bachelor and apply for a grant. You’ll not only get an excellent education, but you’ll be helping to kick-start your career.

This post was written by Susanna Cha on behalf of Guardian Jobs, including graduate jobs, marketing jobs and more.

Student Mobility – a UK example by BBC

The Erasmus programme gives European students since 1987 the possibility to exchange for 3-12 months to another European university in order to get to know foreign people, culture and languages.

In order to increase international mobility of students further, the Bachelor/Master system was introduced in early 2000s. The system allows better comparison of the various study programmes in Europe and enables flexible learning pathways.

This BBC video gives an example of UK students doing their study in the Netherlands as universities in their home country are over subscribed and tuition fees are high.

The increase in student mobility calls for a webportal where students can easily find housing abroad! Welcome to Erasmate!