Conclusion for the 14-week Program on Study Abroad

Welcome back! This is the last post of the 14-week long study for various ways that a student can make his or her own way to enjoy an overseas studying experience. Like what I mentioned at the very beginning, the reason why I chose this topic is that I was actually making the same study plan for myself. For a slow-thinker and a slow-learner like me, it's fascinating to have such a chance to look up for comprehensive information and plan every single details through the whole semester. The flowchart below elaborate how the whole process was about.

 

    From the flowchart above, we can clearly see that under the assumption of  "I want to study and travel at the same time", I chose two possible options to achieve the goal. One is apply for overseas universities or colleges and the other is apply for non-credit-granting programs that provide overseas experiences. After that I spent several weeks doing research about the top universities in English speaking countries based on the "QS World University Rankings 2013", and the research has yielded up some surprising results which is two schools that I've never considered before. However, after comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the two top universities in downtown London, the tuition fee and living costs are fantastically expensive that I can only gave up the plan and look for alternatives.

    Luckily, I did found a better way to send myself and people like me abroad via a economic way, which is the exchange programs for three reasons: First of all, the cost is way lower. In most cases, students only have to pay their own school's fee and nothing else. Secondly, exchange programs provide credits transfer that is crucial for a student's graduation. Last but not least, exchange programs provide just exactly the same experience as studying abroad. Students live and study on the campus, enjoy being the member of the school for that period of time...etc. These are what a summer / winter camp and volunteering cannot offer.

    In sum, if you're also planing a overseas study or travel plan and don't know where to start, hopefully the information I collected and organized here might help you to make the right choice. Good luck!

Alternatives: Summer / Winter Camp & Volunteering

In addition to exchange programs, which we talked about last week, this week let's take a look at some other ways that might also provide the same overseas experience.

    The first alternative I'm sharing to you is the summer or winter camp offered by prestigious colleges or universities. Attendants of these camps will have a chance to live on the campus of their school of dreams, moreover, they will take short-term courses which is specially designed for students to know more about the country's culture, language or history in a efficient way. However, summer or winter camps are expensive in comparison to those methods I mentioned the week before last week. For example, the summer camp to UCB costs at least 200 thousand NTD for a 6-week standard course. For those who only want to slightly experience cultural shock and are extremely well-off, summer / winter camps are options that you should not miss.

The second alternative that actually I recommended more for normal students is volunteering. This number of volunteering programs are increasing outrageously these days. Volunteering programs even have been categorized into several types, some offer free plane tickets, some cover volunteers' living costs, some even provide international certification or credits to their crews. Among all of these countless organizations world wide I strongly recommend AIESEC, an international not-for-profit and the world's largest student-run organization. They have plenty of almost every resource from every part of the world, therefore, you can find volunteering programs to any destination you can ever think of. Most of these Global Community Development Programs (GCDP) take place in summer or winter vacation, students who are interested in should remember to attend their interviews to have a seat in their volunteering programs. Good luck and enjoy!

Alternatives: Exchange Programs

Among these various ways of going abroad economically, most of the exchange programs allow their applicants to pay their own school's tuition fee only and offers credit-transfer services. Therefore it's probably the most economic and accessible way for a student to visit a school in a foreign country. Let's take NCCU students for an example and see where and how can they go abroad within their college years.

First of all, it will be a lot more easier to pick from the current NCCU school partners list or applicants might don't know where to start from. According to the office of international cooperation in NCCU, the school has a great number of partner universities across five continents. For students who would like to use English as the spoken language while they study and travel, universities that located in North America should be their top choices. NCCU currently has 58 partner universities in North America, the schools are scattered in both Canada and the United State. Here are some world famous schools that are listed in our partnership list in North America: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),   University of California, Berkeley (UCB), University of Wisconsin-Madison, just to name a few. The term of these programs depends on each partnership contract, which will last among one to two semester. Some universities also provides summer school for a people who want to experience the way of local living in a short period of time, however, these summer schools won't be as economical as the exchange program I recommended this week. The rest of the information about when is the time for application for admission and all the things about the school will be posted on the school's website, thus make sure to visit the school's website frequently if you're interested in the programs they offer.

In sum, what an exchange program provides is almost the same as that of a 2-year foreign study plan if yuo are well prepared and open minded. Do a little study about the school that you would like to go, send out your application form and enjoy!

Alternatives for Your Overseas Experience

Welcome back!
    According to our last week's conclusion, it seems that to students who do not have abundant fund, the plan of studying abroad could hardly come true. However, we don't have to be so pessimistic and lose all our faith in pursuit of a better life,there are still some alternatives to reach the same goal. For example, colleges and universities are now offering world wide exchange programs, summer/winter camps, volunteering, internships and approved programs that fit all kinds of demands. The rest of the weeks we will be focusing on each of the alternatives, figure out what is it and how to use it to reach our goal economically.
    First of all, these various programs can be roughly divided into two groups, credit-granting or purely experiential. Exchange programs, approved programs and summer/winter (most schools limited the maximum numbers of transferable credits) can be categorized into the former group; whereas volunteering, internships are basically purely experiential.

    Second, the reason why I strongly recommend these alternatives is because they can really cut down a huge amount of costs comparing to your original study plan. For example, exchange programs only cost you your own school's tuition fee while you're actually going to some other schools that has a higher tuition cost; volunteering programs are mostly free and they probably also cover your local living costs, internships programs might costs you plane tickets but you can probably earn more than that after the program ends.
    In short, if you're still hoping for a life-changing overseas experience, make sure to look up for information about the programs mentioned above.

Compare and Contrast: The Top 2 Universities in London.

Point of Comparison	Imperial College London	University College London	Same or Different?
Location	-          Main campus: South Kensington, West London.	-          Main campus: Bloomsbury, Central London.	Same
Academic Strengths	-          Science -          Engineering -          Medical research.	-          Art & humanities -          Life science & Medicine -          Social Science & Management	Different
Student Mix	-          63% male -          31% from outside EU	-          46% male -          41% from outside UK	Different
Application to admission ratio	-          6.5:1	-          8.4:1	Different
Maximum tuition fee (Overseas Post-grad, classroom.)	-          GBP 17,000	-          GBP 16,250	Same

source:
1. http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/university-college-london/
2. http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/imperial-college-london/
3. http://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/choosing-university/ucl-or-imperial

After we've spent couple weeks on learning about the details of the top 3 universities we can find in central London, this week is the time to do some final combat or comparison of the 2 colleges and to conclude. Before we started to do compare and contrast studies, it might be helpful is you read the following paragraphs with the table listed at the top.

First of all, the main campus of University College London located in Bloomsbury, Central London; likewise, the main campus of Imperial College London which located in Kensington is in the center of London. For students who is desperate for exciting cultural experiences of the city, both UCL and ICL can definitely fulfill your needs. As for the tuition fee, UCL overseas post-graduate students, just like those who attend Imperial College London, have to pay approximately 17,000 Britain Pounds for two semesters of full-time enrollment.
Despite all these similarities, the two top central London universities still has quite a lot differences. Unlike Imperial College London who pays particular regard to science, engineering and medical research fields, University College London has the world's top institutions of the art & humanity field of study. Apparently UCL is probably the more appropriate institution for students who graduated from NCCU, since we mainly majored in social science and management fields. From a overseas students aspect, the students who consist the school is equally important to the school itself. Imperial College London is mainly consists of male students; in contrast, UCL is mainly consists of female students. Moreover, UCL has more international students than ICL, which might indicates that students will has a lager chance to use their own languages in UCL. The last but not the least, the application to admission ratio of UCL is relatively low compared with that of Imperial College London. While the two universities have extremely strict entrance standard, applicants who are looking forward to be prospective students of UCL have to pay even more attention to the materials they submit and their grades at their previous schools.

King's College London

According to the 2012/13 QS international world rankings, King's College London is one of the top 30 universities in the world and the fourth oldest in England. King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It might be a bad news to some NCCU students that King's College London doesn't offer further education of business or finance, whereas the other students who major in law or public policy related departments will find KCL would think it appealing. The prestigious law school of King's just received a personal donation of  £20 million from a well-known Hong Kong based philanthropist Dickson Poon in 2012, which implies the school of law could offer much more resources then it ever was.

The main campus of King's College London locates near to that of University College London and to most of the tourist attractions in London, the London eye, Big Ben, the river Thames, the Waterloo bridge...etc. The school itself even use "Study Abroad at King's, in the Heart of London " as the slogan on the overseas students landing page on their official website.

As for the tuition fee of King's, however, is not as expensive as a King should pay. Overseas full time postgraduate research degree programmes costs applicants approximately £16,000 each year, which is a little cheaper than that of University College London and a little more than that of Imperial College London.

If you are a humanities, law, science, psychiatry, medicine, nursing, dentistry, social sciences or international affairs major student, then you'd better put King's College London into your option list.

Imperial College London

Imperial College London was established in 1907, it celebrate its 100 years birthday and became independent from UCL in 2007. Today, Imperial focus mostly on scientific, engineering and medical research, but also has a well-known business school, the Imperial College Business School. Therefore, students who have interest in these areas can take Imperial in to their consideration. The students of Imperial consists of 36% females and 28% are from outside of European Union, the two proportions are much lower than that of UCL, which we might expect a better English study environment with more males and more English speakers.

With 9 campuses in and around London, the main campus of Imperial is in South Kensington, in central London. It's a place where you find yourself surrounded by cultural centers for the arts, sciences and music. Imperial's neighbours include the Royal Albert Hall, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The nearest underground station, the South Kensington station, is only 10 minutes far by walking.

Apart from these basic info, the critical factor that decides whether or not to apply for this college is sure to be the tuition fee. According to "the complete university guide" website, the annual tuition fees that an overseas post-graduate student is expected to pay is around £15,350–17,000, which is approximately $25,911-$28,700 US dollars and $783,400-$867,600 NT dollars.

While marketing have become the most popular choice for Taiwanese students who have a desire to study abroad, Imperial College London offers notable commerce educations, lower tuition fees than that of UCL and also locates in central London is another considerable option for them.