Overseas Grad Studies for US Students? 64
foidulus asks: "I am currently a senior undergrad at Penn State looking into studying overseas. I spent 6 months working in Japan at an R&D lab and have published 1 paper with another pending publication(though I was researching security, however I would like to study bio-informatics). I am confident in my Japanese language skills, however it seems very tough to get any scholarships or funding there, but in the US a lot of schools seem to have tuition waivers and stipends(some even have health insurance!). Have any US Slashdot readers done any Masters/PhD work abroad? Do people from outside the US have any information on grad school in their country? What were your experiences? How did you get funding? Were your language skills adequate?" What differences can one expect when dealing with Graduate School in a foreign University compared to those in the United States?
Have you tried... the Japanese Government? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Have you tried... the Japanese Government? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Have you tried... the Japanese Government? (Score:3, Interesting)
The program gives you five years study in Japan, with the first year being spent at a language school and the remaining four years in an undergraduate program at a Japanese national university. The ministry pays all tuition fees and gives you a monthly allowance (when I was in the program, it was around 138,000 yen a month - equivalent to $US1250 or so).
Th
Re:Have you tried... the Japanese Government? (Score:2)
Re:Have you tried... the Japanese Government? (Score:2, Informative)
I plan on looking at Germany for Studies (Score:1)
If you are serious about moving to germany, this [amazon.com] is a good place t
Answer1~1 (Score:1)
Perhaps they do... oh, wait, that's me
The major difference I see... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The major difference I see... (Score:1)
Most likely, at least in Germany people is used to see foreigns and I never seen that kind of behavior, big cities in Germany are very multicultural and open to everybody. It is funny to see sometimes how a trip in the underground resembles pretty much a Benetton commercial [becool4school.com]. And please don't talk me about racism in Germany because that used to be loong ago. FYI: No, I'm not German, I'm just living here for a while and enjoying this great country.
Re:The major difference I see... (Score:3, Interesting)
I TA'd a CS class in Germany (in German) one semester. I'm a native American English speaker, who learned German in undergrad. Let me tell you, those foreign language classes you take at home only prepare you for dealing with literary and cultural studies, conversation, and daily life. Nobody teaches you how to say 'pointer' or 'worst-case running time' or even how to read a mathematical formula ('three times e to third plus the log of x').
If nothing else, it gave me a whole ne
Re:The major difference I see... (Score:1)
Well, I suppose that's more or less true, if you ignore the fact that the stuff they call "Beer" in the US wouldn't pass for piss in Germany. Don't even get me started on Sausages, or cheese, or bread!
Re:The major difference I see... (Score:2, Funny)
Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:2, Informative)
All in all, it's probably not a great idea unless you're planning on moving out of the US permanently. Few people will have heard of where yo
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:4, Informative)
Only for the very big name institutions (Oxford, Harvard, ETH, MIT, etc.) will the insitution matter more than your advisor. For instance, I'm familiar with the work of some Japanese professors doing interesting bioinformatics and computational biology work, but couldn't tell you the name of their institution.
Maybe the institution matters more for a master's degree, though.
Unrelated (and unsolicited!) advice for the person who asked the original question: you don't really say what your background is, but you mention studying security. From that I assume your background is computers more than biology. You say you want to study bioinformatics. Tha'ts great... bioinformatics needs computer science types. However, wherever you go to study, be sure to get a good background in bio, if you don't already have one, and definitely get some wetlab experience. It will serve you well later.
Also, I haven't seen anyone mention the Fulbright fellowships. They exist to help people study overseas. Also, you can look at the Churchill fellowship if you are interested in studying in the UK. This may be a good choice for your field of choice. The EBI has a good presence in the UK, and would be an excellent place to study bioinformatics.
Good luck! I hope you get to go overseas. Don't worry too much about the pedigree. Just find an interesting project to work on with a good advisor. Science is very international, and your experience living in a different country will definitely be a plus later, as you work with teams of people from many different cultures.
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:2)
you got it backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
For graduate school, it's the research lab where you do your work that matters, not the university. And there are lots of excellent research labs outside the US. Any US university that doesn't want to give you a job because they don't know a good foreign research lab where you did your Ph.D. is a university to be avoided.
If you're planning on just getting a masters and coming back to the states for the Ph.D., that can work,
You got it backwards. Getting a Masters outside the US is hard because requirements are often so different and because of language barriers. Getting a Ph.D. overseas is generally much easier because you will be in a research environment, people will tend to speak English in the research labs, and because the main requirement for a Ph.D. after you have finished your M.A. is doing a good thesis.
The personality, reputation, connections, and quality of a Ph.D. advisor are far more important than whether they happen to be located in the US, France, or Japan.
Re:you got it backwards (Score:2, Informative)
"Prestigious" != good support (Score:2)
A high percentage of the Americans in the same situation did not complete their research degrees (e.g. Bill Clinton) as they were so used to being spoon-fed.
I am doing a PhD in Australia at one of the two 'prestigious' universities here and have been pleased by the sup
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:5, Informative)
"Few people will have heard of where you studied, so they'll just assume the worst."
Come again? Ever heard of Oxford or Cambridge? What about Strasbourg in France? Or McMasters or McGill in Canada?
Yes, /. is US-centric, but stating that all degrees need to be earned in the US is somewhat ridiculous. Sorry to call you on this, but from your resume you've only earned a bachelor's degree - what gives you the credentials to determine whether carrying a foreign graduate degree is helpful or harmful?
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:1)
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:2)
Of course all research is not done in the US. However, in general, most US faculty are not familiar with the strength and weaknesses of 99% of
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:1)
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:2)
This is nonsense. Others have pointed out Oxford and Cambridge, and there are dozens of excellent universities in other first world countries; but I can think of at least three people offhand (and perhaps several more if I think a bit) whom I know personally, who did their Ph.D. (and all earlier studies) in India but landed tenure-track academic positions in science departments in good universities in the U.S.
As a recent New Y
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a strong American presence at the undergraduate level (nearly 20% of the international student population) so by virtue of that, McGill is *somewhat* well-known in the northeastern U.S., at least among college-bound kids and their parents.
See this article on McGill University [wikipedia.org] for an idea. Many of the alumni are household names in the U.S.
Consider this also: public reputation is not the same as academic reputation.
The McGill name may not be well-known to the U.S. public, but in academic circles it sparks recognition.
Also, I am not sure if it really is much harder to get a job with a foreign degree than a U.S. one, because when I browse faculty pages at most U.S. schools, a good number of professors seem to have foreign graduate degrees (granted, these profs were not American to begin with, but....). Anecdotally, I know of many Canadian profs who teach at U.S. schools.
Having said that, graduate funding at McGill is not as good as it ought to be, despite being a first tier research institution. McGill professors are the richest in the country yet only a limited portion of their funds are used to fund grad students (I wonder why).
So let me point the submitter to some Canadian schools that will *guarantee* graduate funding to anyone who can get into some of their programs (doesn't matter if you're Canadian or not). As far as I can tell, the University of Toronto [utoronto.ca] funds every student accepted.... Info here [utoronto.ca]. University of Alberta [ualberta.ca], University of Western Ontario [www.uwo.ca], McMaster University [mcmaster.ca] funds all students accepted to selected programs.
In my experience, U.S. schools often don't like to fund Masters students because M.S. programs are too short for them to extract any useful research out of the students (projects funded by research grants usually take years). They prefer to fund Ph.D. students.
But in Canada, M.S. students have an almost equal chance of getting funding.
Anyway, as some other poster said, there will be insular schools and outward-looking schools. The United States is a big and diverse country - one cannot really generalize.
(P.S. but sometimes it is tempting... for instance, I was watching Letterman last night, and David Letterman was talking to a lady from Texas (this was on Stupid Pet Tricks). He asked her, "So if you drive west from Texas, you hit New Mexico, right?". She said yes. "What state is west of New Mexico?"... and she said "I don't know". And she's from Texas! I'm not American and even I know Arizona is west of New Mexico. But as I said, the U.S. is a big country... and there are all kinds out there.)
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:2)
I had the opportunity to do a PhD (in CS) at UofT and I heard a lot of random comments like this from other people (ie, "UofT: where you're not even just a number"). While the location seemed really great, the faculty and students that I met nice, and there was good research going on there, it also seemed like the school is too huge to actually function in an orderly fashion.
It also seemed like there were some weird things with the fun
Re:Generally, it's not a good idea (Score:2)
The U of T is very rich overall, but when you normalize research money *per faculty*, McGill tops the list. See here [researchinfosource.com]. My feeling is that the money at McGill is not well distributed.
If you look here [researchinfosource.com], you will see the Faculty research intensity at McGill is very high while graduate student research intensity is abysmal (research intensity here is defined in terms of research income). Somehow, grad students at McGill just aren't seeing the money.
You're right about U.S. profs be
Since its bioinformatics... (Score:2, Informative)
www.lbi.ic.unicamp.br
Even if you don't have interest in coming to Brazil, the lab's professors could point you towards other good schools "abroad", and how to dig up scholarships for those. Try and mail them.
Personally, I find that moving from where you are, wherever that may be, is a nice experie
Don't? (Score:4, Insightful)
Look into UK schools (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Look into UK schools (Score:3, Informative)
So, I think when you add it up from Bachelor's on, it comes out to about the same. Of course, if you already have an Master's an
Re:Look into UK schools (Score:4, Informative)
At Oxford, students wanting to do a DPhil enter as "Probationary Research Students". If they've already done a MSc, they can transfer to DPhil status during their first term; otherwise, they spend a year taking courses, writing a "qualifying dissertation", and transfer to DPhil status at the end of their first year. In practice, many students holding Masters degrees decide to spend their first year taking courses anyway.
The idea behind this process is that being granted the status of DPhil student means that you have demonstrated an ability to do research, and it's hard to judge that based on an undergraduate degree.
In theory, someone could enter Oxford University as an undergraduate student, get their BA three years later, get accepted as a PRS, transfer to DPhil status, and finish their DPhil after a total of five years. In practice, most people who want to do research opt for a 4 year undergraduate MSc program and spend 4 years on their DPhil.
Re:Look into UK schools (Score:2)
You can move straight onto doing a PhD if you have a 2.1 or 1st class Honours degree. However, since many supervisors/departments have been burnt by students accepting a program and then leaving within three months, a MSc/MPhil is now the preferred qualification. A MSc/MPhil is also required to top up a 2.2 class Honours degree. A MSc can bec completed part-time in three-years or full-tim
Re:Look into UK schools (Score:2)
A lot of people seem to but it is not necessary. You can go from a BSc straight into a PhD, as long as the university believes you are good enough.
in Korea (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm getting a Korean government scholarship, which is about 2 or 3 times the amount what my labmates get from their various sources of funding (private companies, government, others). The cost of living here is lower than the U.S. or Japan and while health insurance is not included in the scholarship, it is also relatively cheap in Korea.
My Korean language skills aren't good yet, so I'm taking classes that are taught in English. Textbooks are all in English and of course all research papers are written in English. So while you can get by with just English, I feel like I miss out a lot by not being able to fully understand Colloquiums or discussion in the lab. But one of the reasons why I came to Korea was to improve my Korean, wanting to be more involved in the lab is good motivation.
Culturally, there are many labs whose Professors are rather dictatorial. Indeed, students are expected to pay more respect to Professors than in the US and even do errands and such (like clean the Professor's office), but there are many Professors who like to teach/advise in a more collaborative manner. My Professor is one of them and his teaching style is one of the reasons I came to KAIST.
So far my experience has been a positive one.
Internship (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Internship (Score:2, Informative)
Norway/scandinavia (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Norway/scandinavia (Score:1)
Grr... I hate spelling mistakes....
Try Sweden (Score:3, Informative)
Most beginner universities offer Master's programs given in English, for bioinformatics there is for instance this
one [chalmers.se].
By law higher education is free of charge in Sweden (!), ie no tuition fees (this applies to foreigners as well). For foreign student's I think there are various scholarship to cover living expenses as well.
Finland might be another good option, there are definately some world class universities overthere.
Re:Try Sweden (Score:3, Informative)
By law higher education is free of charge in Sweden (!), ie no tuition fees (this applies to foreigners as well). For foreign student's I think there are various scholarship to cover living expenses as well.
Finland might be another good option, there are definately some world class universiti
Re:Try Sweden (Score:2)
"Sorry my thesis didn't get done, I was too pre-occupied with knulla"
It's a mixed bag (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps the biggest reason though, was that I really didn't plan to spend the rest of my life in Europe, so it made more sense to complete my degree in North America. The longer you spend abroad, the harder it becomes both logistically (more stuff) and socially (all your friends here vs. all your friends and family at home) to return.
Currently, in Germany there is a movement (pushed by some EU agreements I think) to convert the structure of the education system to match the British model. Traditionally, you earn a Diplom in Computer Science, which is equivalent to an MS. More and more schools are changing to a BS/MS track though, which will make things easier for foreign students to study in Germany and vice-versa. Unfortunately, most schools are still doing Diplom programs, but if you look around you can find MS programs around.
Simultaneously, a lot of departments have started offering courses in English (especially CS departments) in order to draw foreign students. Since hardly anybody learns German in school, it's very hard for German profs to get great foreign grad students like their counterparts based in English speaking countries. You could certainly complete the MS where I did (in Saarbruecken) without knowing any German and you'd still have a good number of courses to choose from. At some other places though, I've heard cases where students would need to take say 4 courses and there are only 4 offered in English, so you have to take those specific ones.
One big downside to doing an MS at a German university though, is that it's hard to get any financial aid. Because the MS has replaced the Diplom (which is/was the first degree earned), MS students are still viewed and treated as undergrads in almost every way. However, for foreign students, there are scholarships available, but obviously not everybody can actually get one. The biggest source is from DAAD [www.daad.de], which I believe is funded by the German government. A couple of universities also have some scholarships as well, but I think these are few and far between. I was lucky to get one from the Max Planck Institute [mpi-sb.mpg.de] (via the IMPRS [imprs-cs.de]) located in Saarbruecken where I studied. It paid 715EUR/month, which is plenty to live on, since the cost of living is relatively low and you only need to pay around 100EUR in fees per semester.
Here, there are a lot of jobs on campus usually doing various programming tasks for a research group. Foreign students are allowed to work these jobs, but obviously there's no guarantee that you'll find a job for which you have the necessary skills.
For PhD students, there is obviously more funding available, but it really depends on your advisor's funding situation. Unlike in the US, where many, many profs have external funding from DOD, NSF, DOE, etc. in Europe there's much more of a reliance on money coming directly through the university. Hence, it seems to me that there are a lot of profs who cannot fund their students particularly well. However, those that do have lots of funding, pay their students quite well. After taking into account cost of living, the compensation is better here, but not by a huge margin.
As actual instruction goes,
Re:It's a mixed bag (Score:2)
At one point I was preparing to go to Germany for further studies (Uni-Erlangen), so I know a little bit about the German education system. (plus my brother's doing his Diplom there right now)
I have to say this: For a long time, I've thought German education was superior to anything we had in North America, but in the course of my interactions with German exchange students over the past few years, I've been told that that notion is quite outdated. Furthermore, many Eastern
Re:It's a mixed bag (Score:2)
Sure, no problem.
I have to say this: For a long time, I've thought German education was superior to anything we had in North America, but in the course of my interactions with German exchange students over the past few years, I've been told that that notion is quite outdated. Furthermore, many Eastern Europeans and Russians tell me that their science and math education is much more rigorous than what they have in Germany (and has always been).
Ya, it's actually sorta sa
Similar Discussion (Score:3, Informative)
Think of the cost of living... (Score:3, Interesting)
Netherlands maybe? (Score:3, Informative)
what about as a faculty member? (Score:2)
Why the US is a net importer of grad students (Score:1)
That's because the US pays grad students well, by international standards. There's a standard set-up for PhD students in the US whereby you get a stipend to be a teaching assistant or (less commonly) research assistant, and it covers your fees (and almost enough to live on, too).
So why does the US pay grad students? Well...
Historically a huge number of americans go to university as undergrads compared to most other countries (though othe
Studying in Japan (Score:1)