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.

University College London(UCL)

    After we've conducted the cross-reference study between the location of the best college in the UK and the famous tourist attractions last week, we're going to take a closer look at these three college located in London:
1.University College London
2.Imperial College London
3.King's College London
    Most of the information provided here are based on what I found on the two website, "the complete university guide" and "QS World University Rankings". If you're a international student, I highly recommend you to browse thoroughly the former website in your leisure time. The complete university guide provides extremely details about the school itself and some other extra but essential information about the area around the campus that a student would need; for example, info about student house hunting, crime hot spot near campus, the average living cost survey, etc. Most importantly, they offer totally free access to the website.

University College London

    UCL is founded in 1826, which makes it the 3rd oldest university in the UK. Situated in the heart of London, UCL is very near to the world's most important collections, including the British Library and the British Museum. Alongside world-leading departments across all of the arts and sciences, UCL also boasts a top-rated architecture school, and one of the UK’s best art schools, the Slade School of Art.  At undergraduate level, international students at UCL can expect to pay £14,750-19,500 per-year for most subjects (roughly US$22,500-30,000).

    Even though UCL could be the best choice for any student who wants to pursue a high academic achievement, I don't think UCL will be the right place for NCCU graduates. First of all, the subject strength of UCL is manly in the field of At and science, which are exactly the weakness of NCCU. If you want to find a top university that offer a leading management or business school, the Imperial College London would be a better choice for you. Secondly, the annual tuition fee is outrageously high for international students. This is a common phenomenon that happens in higher educations in UK or USA, however, compared to that of the local students', international students should be well-prepared to pay for their doubled tuition fee. Apart from these seemingly disadvantages, the location situation of UCL is a clear victory, students who are abundant of money will never regret their choice of UCL.

Cross Reference the Locations of Colleges with Tourist Attractions in UK and Europe

Referring to our outcome last week, now we are certain that London has the most convenience transport systems among the top four locations, which travelers should care most. However, we cannot conclude that London will be the best choice for "backpackholics" simply because the city surpass the others on one part. This week, by doing some cross reference research by overlapping the locations of the most recommended tourist attractions in UK with the location of London, the results might provide sufficient evidence to conclude that London is the right choice. The table below lists the top 10 must-go tourist attractions in the UK based on several tour-guide sites, www.squidoo.com, www.visitlondon.com and www.touropia.com.

Rank	Spot	Location
1	Stonehenge (a prehistoric stone circle)	Wiltshire
2	Tower Bridge	London
3	The British Museum	London
4	York Minster	Deangate, York
5	Tower of London	London
6	Big Ben	London
7	Palace of Westminster	London
8	Buckingham Palace	London
9	The London Eye	London
10	St. Paul's Cathedral	London

The result showed here might not be so surprising that tourists can fill their travel schedule full only by wandering around the city of London. Moreover, these top ranked spots are located closely to each other, and the London Underground has stations that transport backpackers to each of them in an convenience and economic way. If you have enough of the Great Britain's heritage and culture, you might want to expand your expedition to the whole Europe, then it will be perfect if you are fortunate enough to live in a city that has several international airports. Before that, let's take a look at another table that indicates the top 10 European travel destinations for 2013 based on an article written by Andy Murdock on Lonely Planet.

Rank	Spot	Location
1	Porto & Douro Valley	Portugal
2	Budapest	Hungary
3	Northern Iceland	Iceland
4	Cinque Terre	Italy
5	Moravia	Czech Republic
6	Bern	Switzerland
7	Marseille	France
8	Croatia	Croatia
9	Northern Ireland	Ireland
10	Copenhagen	Denmark

Apparently, it won't be a problem to book any ticket to go to these places from any international airport from London. Hopefully, this week's article do provide some more evidence to persuade you that choosing London as a base for backpacking and pursuit academic achievement will be a choice you won't regret.