The Top 10 Universities on the QS World University Rankings 2013

    This week we are moving on to the next topic which is the pros and cons of the top universities based on the QS World University Rankings 2013.
    According to the list below, if you have the passion for these world top universities, which mostly located in US and UK, the place you are going is definitely English speaking countries. The best Asian region university you can find on the ranking list within top 30 are National University of Singapore (NUS), and University of Hong Kong. Therefore, it's time to face the urgent need of better English skills unless you want to stay and travel in Asia only. Frankly speaking, from an Asian's aspect, we've read so many materials about European history whereas we only learn the American ways from modern movies and pop cultures, the preferred place to travel will be first Europe then North America. Thus, we have University of Cambridge (#3), University College London (#4), Imperial College London (#5), University of Oxford (#6),  ETH Zurich (#12), University of Edinburgh (#17), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (#19), King's College London (#19) on our option list below.

Rank	University	Location of Main Campus
3	University of Cambridge	Cambridge, UK
4	University College London	London, UK
5	Imperial College London	London, UK
6	University of Oxford	Oxford, UK
12	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology	Zürich, Switzerland
17	University of Edinburgh	Edinburgh, UK
19	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Lausanne, Switzerland
19	King's College London	London, UK

    According to the list, these top 20 Europe Universities located in either the United Kingdom or Switzerland; luckily, English is available in both countries. Still, if you can learn German or French before you go to study in Switzerland, it will be a huge plus. The location mentioned above are mostly large cities in that country, any choice from these schools might provide you the most convenient life and transportation systems. For example, London is the capital city of UK, Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, and Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland while Lausanne ranked fourth in the same country. However, Cambridge and Oxford are university towns located in non-metropolitan district, which means the transport system might not be as convenient as that of those capital cities. Surprisingly, Oxford is served by the nearby Oxford airport within 15 minutes driving, therefore I will recommend college towns like Oxford more than those more like Cambridge.
    This week we've chose 8 out of 800 top universities from the QS World University Rankings, next week we'll go even further to take a closer look on the pros and cons of these universities. Thanks for reading! 

Tips for Choosing Your Ideal College / Univeristy

Last week I've shared my personal aspect of studying abroad, which is to have a chance to travel around the country and try to know more about their cultural  for a longer period of time. This week, after we've all agree on my reason of going abroad, it's time for us to pick the place we want to go and which college / university's student we want to be. Most of the colleges and universities around the world today have their own official website, it should be easy for anyone to find the basic information and admission information of the school. However, if you have suffered from online-phishing and lost all of your trust on online information, overseas education exhibitions are hosted almost every month at the Taipei exhibition center, these free admission exhibitions are another resource to get information from. While you're looking for schools to apply, the following key points should be taken under careful consideration in order to find your ideal school. First of all, consider the location. Since the main reason for studying abroad here is to enjoy backpacking with your school mates, it's unwise to choose a school which located in a college town in the middle of nowhere and is far from any available public transformation system.(e.g. metro system or international airport.) Second, consider the school's reputation. Most of the overseas students from Taiwan will go back to their homeland after they achieve their diploma, and it's possible that they have to use the diploma to seek for job opportunities. If the school you attended was not well-known by people, (At least it should be something that can be easily found on the internet) you'll still be less competitive when applying for occupations while you're actually more competitive then others. Last of all, consider the school's cost. Typically, the annual tuition fee of prestigious private college and university in the US costs about 20 to 40 times more of our tuition fee in Taiwan. A trade-off has to be made between applying for well-known colleges or for cheap community colleges, which depends on how much money you and your family can afford. Once again, it's unwise to put all your live savings in such investment while the main purpose of going abroad is to travel. In conclusion, applicants should be realistic while facing so many options. The tips and key points provided here may help you think twice before making a right decision.

Why study abroad?

Hi, thanks for stopping by!
Do you have any plans or interest in studying abroad? If the answer is yes, then you've come to the right place! I'm also a person who have already set a goal to study abroad within 2 to 3 years after graduation and military service. Therefore, in this blog I'm going to rearrange the information that I can find in a more organized way. (Probably some chart of comparative studies.) In each week, I will offer some topics that have something to do with studying abroad, including the latest news or university /college brief introductions . Feedback and  further discussion is very welcome. Today, before everything started, shouldn't we calm down a little bit and rethink why should we study abroad?
The most common reason for studying abroad might include, learning foreign languages, making friends from all over the world, enjoying a long holiday...etc. As for me, the critical factor that keeps pushing me is the possibility of having a long-term of time for traveling. My former experience in Shanghai Fudan University told me, only students have just enough time to travel around the country. Staying at the dormitory is by far the most economic choice as making it your travel base. But you might question me, is having fun that important? What about your studies? In my belief, traveling is not only about having fun. And the "travel" I mentioned here is more like backpacking, not luxury tours. Moreover, if the university or college I'm attending in my hometown is good enough, the courses taught there have absolutely the same quality as they have in foreign university and college. Whether I can learn something or not is always depend on the learning side not the teaching side. Therefore, the must-dos before I'm too old is to travel as far as I could, and meet as many people as  I could, only by doing so could I know how the world really looks like.
In short, for a backpack-holic like me, the main purpose of studying abroad is to have the chance to travel around the place rather than staying on the campus.
Next week, I will start to show you some of the information I collected and introduce them briefly, hopefully you will find some of them are worth reading.
Thanks again for reading to the end! Have a good day!