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ADVANTAGES OF ADVANCED DEGREES ACQUIRED ABROAD
Tuition for undergraduate education and masters degrees are significantly cheaper abroad.
While a degree from Taiwan National University or Chulalangkorn University (BKK) might not hold the pedigree one might get from UCLA in America, if you go to university abroad you will have the following advantages:
-Rockstar status for being a full time foreign student, especially in places like Manila/Taiwan/China/Colombia/Peru
-Potential full scholarships
-Learn a foreign language
-Build a juggernaut network abroad
-Get funneled into high tier local jobs and be able to accumulate work experience through part time jobs and internships - your student visa will enable you to not have to worry about the visa shuffle
-Strike business partnerships with elites
Think about it. Which one of these two people do you think has more street smarts, value as a global citizen, and more exciting job prospects?
(THESE PROFILES ARE BASED ON REAL PEOPLE I KNOW)
Mark Johnson - Tufts University graduate, English major, 3.3 GPA - Boston - only speaks English, has no "hard skills" - assumed that the job market would be open because of a good bachelors. Graduates from Tufts University and works at Abercrombie and Fitch, hoping for the job market will improve. Has 90,000 dollars in debt.
James Jones - Taiwan National University graduate - East Asian Medicine major, dual degree with Mandarin Chinese - lives in Taipei, is now fluent in Mandarin and English. Received a scholarship and only has 5,000 dollars in debt.
Due to his unique experience, James is now prototyping an herbal blood pressure relief remedy to manufacture in Taiwan/China and sell in Canada and Australia. Due to being one of the few foreign people full time at TNU, he networks with the medical department and gets a well-known professor in the health field to endorse his product and run tests in laboratories.
Due to his abilities in graphic design that he built over the past few years, he is able to create great wordpress sites and ecommerce platforms for venture ideas he has. Due to being at the most elite local university, he is able to network with Taipei's elites and raise an angel investment of $40K USD to get his business idea off the ground and into production.
While he has been at NTU he has been partying with rich Taiwanese kids who grew up in California and have connections in mainland China. He gets in touch with B level celebrities through the clubbing circuit and gets a good deal on a sponsorship. Since Taipei is a 2 hour flight from Shanghai, he spends a lot of time traveling between these two cities and building connections that will last him a lifetime.
The freelance graphic design business he has been running for 2 years during undergrad is running nearly on autopilot because he's built a brand as "Western Quality Design for Asian Prices" and has time to take risks to build other ventures and brand, such as the blood pressure remedy he invented and patented. He outsources this work to Taiwan National University design students who intern for him for pennies on the dollar.
James Jones dates fashion models in Taipei, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. He lives a very comfortable lifestyle for 2200 dollars in Taipei while running these ventures.
He occasionally sees the NYTimes headlines about the sorry state of the US job market. He momentarily feels a sense of sorrow for his friends back home and relief that he made this international career move.
Then he gets on a skype call with his distributor in Shenzhen. There is money to be made, after all, and time can't be wasted feeling bad for anyone else.
Who has a better future? I'd put my money on the Taiwan guy.
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ADVANTAGES OF ADVANCED DEGREES ACQUIRED ABROAD
Tuition for undergraduate education and masters degrees are significantly cheaper abroad.
While a degree from Taiwan National University or Chulalangkorn University (BKK) might not hold the pedigree one might get from UCLA in America, if you go to university abroad you will have the following advantages:
-Rockstar status for being a full time foreign student, especially in places like Manila/Taiwan/China/Colombia/Peru
-Potential full scholarships
-Learn a foreign language
-Build a juggernaut network abroad
-Get funneled into high tier local jobs and be able to accumulate work experience through part time jobs and internships - your student visa will enable you to not have to worry about the visa shuffle
-Strike business partnerships with elites
Think about it. Which one of these two people do you think has more street smarts, value as a global citizen, and more exciting job prospects?
(THESE PROFILES ARE BASED ON REAL PEOPLE I KNOW)
Mark Johnson - Tufts University graduate, English major, 3.3 GPA - Boston - only speaks English, has no "hard skills" - assumed that the job market would be open because of a good bachelors. Graduates from Tufts University and works at Abercrombie and Fitch, hoping for the job market will improve. Has 90,000 dollars in debt.
James Jones - Taiwan National University graduate - East Asian Medicine major, dual degree with Mandarin Chinese - lives in Taipei, is now fluent in Mandarin and English. Received a scholarship and only has 5,000 dollars in debt.
Due to his unique experience, James is now prototyping an herbal blood pressure relief remedy to manufacture in Taiwan/China and sell in Canada and Australia. Due to being one of the few foreign people full time at TNU, he networks with the medical department and gets a well-known professor in the health field to endorse his product and run tests in laboratories.
Due to his abilities in graphic design that he built over the past few years, he is able to create great wordpress sites and ecommerce platforms for venture ideas he has. Due to being at the most elite local university, he is able to network with Taipei's elites and raise an angel investment of $40K USD to get his business idea off the ground and into production.
While he has been at NTU he has been partying with rich Taiwanese kids who grew up in California and have connections in mainland China. He gets in touch with B level celebrities through the clubbing circuit and gets a good deal on a sponsorship. Since Taipei is a 2 hour flight from Shanghai, he spends a lot of time traveling between these two cities and building connections that will last him a lifetime.
The freelance graphic design business he has been running for 2 years during undergrad is running nearly on autopilot because he's built a brand as "Western Quality Design for Asian Prices" and has time to take risks to build other ventures and brand, such as the blood pressure remedy he invented and patented. He outsources this work to Taiwan National University design students who intern for him for pennies on the dollar.
James Jones dates fashion models in Taipei, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. He lives a very comfortable lifestyle for 2200 dollars in Taipei while running these ventures.
He occasionally sees the NYTimes headlines about the sorry state of the US job market. He momentarily feels a sense of sorrow for his friends back home and relief that he made this international career move.
Then he gets on a skype call with his distributor in Shenzhen. There is money to be made, after all, and time can't be wasted feeling bad for anyone else.
Who has a better future? I'd put my money on the Taiwan guy.
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