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Originally Posted by ninjatalli How does one evaluate which are the good colleges for a particular area of focus (for masters programs)? After nearly ~15 years experience, the bug is extremely on me to continue my learning journey (been itching for a few years). Asking here assuming some of the folks out here would have gone through the education route in the past. |
First of all congratulations for the thought process. You live only once and you certainly have to take the step and get bitten by the bug, no matter how old you are. I worked few years in India just to save up for my masters education.
I took the education route, not because I wanted to emigrate, but I really wanted to learn a lot more and in-depth about Automotive Engineering. The reason to emigrate being: there were not many colleges in India with Masters focussing on Automotive systems. When I looked for colleges abroad, I initially narrowed down to Europe and then towards Northern Europe and the Nordics, as personally the far east and far west did not enchant me like Europe in terms of diversity. After studying in the Netherlands, doing my master thesis in a German Tier-1 supplier, am currently living and working in NL for the past 10 years. Here are the steps I would suggest for anyone choosing for a college in Europe:
1. Course based on own motivation is king - You first have to have a burning desire to learn more about your subject of interest. Then it becomes easy to live and adapt to a foreign country, while you are studying. I have seen some my fellow college mates returning back to their home countries because of lack of interest during the course. Some at early stages and some at the end of their course. Always choose the course and then the college/university.
2. After course comes the country - Research about the country, culture, customs, major industries and what type of jobs/businesses would be interesting for you when you graduate and if these are in abundance if at all you want to settle there.
3. Most European countries have nation wide rankings of their colleges and esp. for the course. Some courses in some colleges would be ranking even in the top 10 world rankings. Usually these are in local languages. Google translate is your friend, but Do it the hard way. Type what you want to search in google translate. Then copy the translated term (eg. in Finnish) and paste it in whatever search engine is famous in your land of emigration. Then you get hits on local news about rankings colleges etc. all in Finnish. Gets you quickly to the right news than some Foreigner trying to explain in English about a Finnish course.
4. Think about further than Masters - For eg. when you are done with Masters you might feel more challenged and wanted to pursue a Doctoral work in your field of interest. You never know. So plan further than masters.
5. Enjoy your student life no matter what - In the university where I studied, there was also part-time students (who were working in Dutch & German Automotive companies) who are almost 1,5 times older than me at that time at a different stage of life with family and kids. But in class, they were all equally fun and curious to learn.
Tips:
1. Start learning the language of the country where you are going to emigrate to. Gets you headstart and helps in your search for things.
2. You can also work part-time in some countries and not so in some other. So check your local laws.
3. Fees is different for EU nationals and sometimes zero for students from the same country. But, we, the third world citizens who emigrate are considered by EU countries as the 'rich folk' (I seriously laughed every time when I was repaying my student loans about this rich folk myth) who can afford and are charged pretty heftily. Try for scholarships if any in offer. Usually there are EU wide and nation wide scholarships for futuristic courses (Read: which mainstream students who want a mainstream job don't bother to apply) which might save you a part of fees or offer 'fully paid one semester abroad' type of offers. Check recent ones. I am outdated.
Hope it helps! And wish you the very best!