Any current students (or parents of students) who are considering grad school abroad? A couple of my acquaintances have adult children who are getting their masters in Sweden, but I don’t see them often enough to know how it’s going.
My college student is soon to be a senior and is starting to consider grad school options and is intrigued by the idea of Canada or Europe. He speaks Spanish well enough to attend classes in that language, but otherwise would need a program in English.
What subject is he is interested in for masters? There are various subjects across Europe where it’s not too difficult to find English instruction, but I don’t imagine it’s as easy for others. Although the UK would be a more obvious option for a lot of choice in English.
Europe is so small and interconnected that they have always had a lingua franca, which has been American English since after WWII. You will find numerous universities in Europe that teach in English, since the schools there have larger percentages of foreign students, and even foreign professors. This is also what enables so many U.S. students to have semesters abroad in undergraduate.
What is their ultimate goal? If they want to live abroad, school abroad makes sense. But since school choice often impacts job opportunities, they have to consider whether school abroad would make it harder to make connections to land a job in the U.S.
Our neighbors’ kid is going to London for a masters. In his case it’s a way of resetting his future biotech job search after a year of looking unsuccessfully (he graduated in 2024, has been living at home, working in a restaurant, there’s very little available). We’ll see if it works out.
My older S would have gone if he’d won a Marshall scholarship (he was a finalist). He doesn’t think he would have benefited directly in terms of the job he’s doing today, but it could have been good for his resume in the longer term. My younger S is thinking about a U.K. masters, as he’d like to do research and his resume may need to be strengthened to get a PhD place. But working in a lab here might be a more cost-effective option.
For a rising senior with a compelling resume I’d look at the scholarships that will pay for time abroad (Fulbright, Marshall, Rhodes etc). This was a very positive experience for my S even though he didn’t win (he enjoyed these applications, he’d done a Truman application the year before). But it’s now pretty late in the day to be putting together the application and seeking references etc.
If your child decides on pursuing a named fellowship, the Fulbright would probably make the most sense at this point in the timeline. There are hundreds of Spanish ETA Fulbrights offered each year and might be a great pathway to have another option in addition to grad school applications.
What is the current status of Fulbright funding? It was frozen earlier in the year but I haven’t followed developments and don’t trust google AI to be accurate.
I’m not exactly sure of Fulbright funding, but I do know that Fulbright has been sending out “apply please” emails to past semi-finalists and alternates.
It is important to decide how much you want to depend on external funding/how dependable the funding is when applying to any scholarship opportunity.
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Not entirely sure at this point about what they want to study. Something in the Arts/Humanities ".
Putting the cart before the horse here. Masters programs are not like summer camp where you can do Arts and Crafts in the morning and volleyball in the afternoon.
Develop a focused plan on what to study and the where becomes easy. Without an academic direction, the discussion is… Academic.
Investigating what options are out there is just as important as knowing what you want to spend 2 (or more) years studying in depth, imo. If you don’t know what is available, how do you know what you want?
If you are looking to go abroad (first and foremost), then widening the aperture of what to study makes a lot of sense. Gives one more options as to location, price, etc.
A student passionate about art history is likely going have a different set of choices than the student studying Shakespeare or modern Irish literature.
Can you study James Joyce in Florence? Probably. But doesn’t make much sense. Grad programs are not interchangeable
If she doesn’t have a specific interest, a Taught Master’s or in Ireland a “top up level 8” or in Scotland advanced entry post HND, might be best. Teaching certificates can be interesting too, even if she doesn’t intend to teach.
Exactly! Thank you so much for this. Student is an off-beat interdisciplinary type person. It’s not a matter of lacking direction, but rather of having many viable directions to explore, most of which are as of yet undiscovered.
D22 is also interested in grad school in Europe. But ideally she wants to work a year or two in the US first. She has EU citizenship, so that would make things easier and allow her to work there after IF that’s what she wants to do.
I am a bit leery, because of job opportunities in the US afterwards. I think that’s the tricky part for those that want to return to the US. However, her field is public health/ epidemiology, so sitting out the next few years in Europe might not be a bad option, as the immediate future in that field in the US looks tricky.
My son (S19) has done two master’s programs in the UK. The first was a “conversion” psychology program at a large, highly-regarded university in Scotland, which he did not enjoy at all. That program is intended for students who do not have undergraduate psychology degrees from a UK university. My son did have a psychology undergraduate degree from a US university, so part of the problem may have been simply boredom at again studying things he already knew, but he also disliked the very large and impersonal classes he encountered. His second masters is a degree in sports psychology at St Mary’s University in Twickenham, London that he will complete next month (the conversion degree was a requirement for admission to this second program). He has loved the program at St Mary’s, which has been more like his LAC experience in the US - fewer than 15 students in the program, no TAs, close interaction with the professors, etc. So I think it would be important to look carefully at the specific programs your student may be interested in.
Thank you! The existence of “conversion courses” is something I didn’t know about before this thread. It sounds like there are numerous ones available (great news for my student who may need to do this depending on the final path chosen!), but that the experience varies. Good to know. Thanks again!
I know there are also conversion courses for law, but I am not sure what else. I think they come up in areas where licensing or certification is required to practice in the UK.