COVER STORY

STUDYING ABROAD

Apart from the international perspective that a person develops there are other advantages that studying overseas provides

Shivani Manchanda

To further enhance the range of choices a large number of foreign universities are collaborating with Indian institutions and offering their degrees/diplomas either completely in India or partially on an Indian campus and partially in their own country.

The world as the saying goes has become a global village. The issues and technologies people deal with have become comparable. It is no longer people just in developing countries looking westward to study abroad, even in countries like USA study abroad is an exciting concept. Americans want to experience the Asian/European world to gain cross-cultural insights.

Companies across the globe are giving preference to people who have experienced other cultures and patterns in society. Since the product the multi-nationals have to market is global in such a context international education has become very vital.

Since companies are expanding their horizons, with international collaborations, mergers, take-overs and international operations, they are looking at employees who are as comfortable working in their own country as they are abroad. These people are being preferred in the global job market and a superb way of gaining this experience is education abroad.

Apart from the international perspective that a person develops let's try and evaluate if there are any other advantages that studying overseas provides.

Interdisciplinary and New Age courses

Universities abroad offer a very wide range of courses for a student to choose from. You could do degree courses in portfolio management, forensic accounting, tissue engineering, internet security etc. Many of us have a wide array of interests and in foreign universities it is possible to do a dual degree or a double major. If psychology and law are of interest to you, you could do a dual degree or if you want to specialise in both management and engineering then that is also possible. So if you have more than one course in mind, for example creative writing with media, then going and studying abroad could be the answer for you.

Flexible entry criteria

As you can see the range of courses you can do abroad is very vast. Most of these universities are also reasonably flexible about your previous academic background. If after having studied mechanical engineering you want to shift to computers or law, you can. Sometimes you might have to do a few prerequisite courses, but you can do it!