Nowadays, many children from the country are going to study abroad. This is a program that costs lakhs. Some people send their children to study abroad by mortgaging their houses and taking loans at interest. Many parents make sacrifices for their children, hoping that they will study and escape.
Since I am currently living abroad, my wife has a Masters Degree from a university abroad, and my sister-in-law is currently studying at a college abroad, I believe I have the information to comment on this issue.
This article is my opinion on what to consider when studying abroad.
Why go abroad?
Studying in colleges in foreign countries is quite expensive. Courses that cost two lakhs in India can sometimes cost 20 lakhs when studied abroad. If you are going to return to India after studying, it is a big mistake to go without a full scholarship. If you are going to continue your studies abroad, you should calculate the return on investment of the degree you are studying. I will write about this below.
Return on investment of the degree being studied
Some degrees increase the chances of getting a job and getting a high salary for the job you get. For example, an Electronics/Electrical Engineering Masters degree or a Nursing degree. After taking a Nursing degree and passing the qualification exam, it will be easier to get a job in almost all foreign countries. Similarly, there is a good demand for electronic engineers in Western countries. Although it is a little difficult to get a job, the salary will be very high if you get a job. Computer science engineers are also generally easy to get a job and have a good salary. Most of these jobs will be in private companies. These companies are more likely to do the visa and immigration paperwork we need.
Studying a nursing degree and pursuing a master’s degree in engineering (master’s degrees generally take two years) are generally much less expensive than other four-year courses. The chances of getting a job after the course are higher.
At the same time, the job prospects for someone with a Masters in English Language Literature are somewhat limited. This is because people with this degree are hired as teachers in schools or colleges or by some companies for their creative writing or writing their official memos. Such companies are very unlikely to do visa or other immigration paperwork for us.
If we decide to go abroad for a four-year engineering degree, we can only be sure of a job if we are the best student in the institution we are studying at. Otherwise, everything will be like luck. In foreign countries, especially in places like America, Canada, Germany, Australia, there will be a lot of young people who are citizens of that country in most engineering courses. While a person from abroad has to do a work visa and immigration paperwork, these students can be hired for the same job without doing any of this. Then, only if we are the best student in a class, a company will be willing to do all this for us. On the other hand, very few people go abroad for a master’s degree. Because in professional courses, almost everyone gets a job after a bachelor’s degree. Then, there will be less competition to get a job after a master’s degree. Similarly, a master’s degree is often helpful in doing immigration paperwork.
If you join a college in the US to become a doctor after completing your Plus Two, you will get your license as a doctor after about 7-8 years. If you come to the US straight from India after completing your Plus Two and join as a doctor, you will end up with a debt of crores of rupees by the time you finish the course. At the same time, if you get your MBBS from your home country and pass the qualification exam in the US and go for MD, you will sometimes get your license within three years.
The important thing to note here is that you should take accredited courses in India that are transferable to American universities.
Now, if you are going abroad to do a PhD instead of a Master’s degree, you will most likely receive a stipend. Generally, this will cover our fees and living expenses.
Can I get a visa to work after studying?
If you take two-year courses in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) category in the United States, you will get a three-year work visa. This is called OPT. If you get OPT after completing the course, you must find a job within 90 days. Otherwise, you will have to go back. If you get a job, you must switch to another visa within three years. Or, you must go back after three years. In the current situation in the United States, this visa is called H1B. The H1B visa is a lottery. Finding a company that sponsors the visa is difficult. After that, you only get two chances to apply for the visa within three years. If you get it within that time, you can continue in the United States, otherwise, you will have to go back. In this situation, spending crores of rupees to study in the United States is a big risk.
If you take this degree in Canada or Australia, you just need to find a company that sponsors the visa. And there is no lottery system or game of luck in the visa application. So the country you are accepted to study in is very important.
But America is a very good country to do a doctorate. There is a program in America where you can get permanent residency or a green card under a category called EB1 if you do a PhD. So, PhD holders generally don’t have the tension of this visa.
Many countries have very specific rules about how long you can work after studying there. You should only take admission in college after researching and understanding this.
Should you study a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree?
In my opinion, nursing is the only profession where you can go abroad to study for a bachelor’s degree. It is better to go for a master’s degree in engineering, physics, and chemistry. Even if it is animation or creative writing, it is better to study for a bachelor’s degree in India and go abroad for a master’s degree after one or two years of work experience. The best thing for Indian citizens who want to come to the US is to come to do a PhD. If you are coming to do a master’s degree, you should come only if you are sure that you will be in the top 20% of your class. Otherwise, it will be a little difficult to get a job.
Which college you go to is also very important .
The reason why students coming from abroad pay very high fees is that there are some poor colleges in Western countries like the parallel colleges in the country. When you come from your country and study by paying lakhs of rupees, do not think that you can go to any college if you get admission. You should only join after checking whether it is a big university with a good reputation. If you study in good universities in good cities, the chances of getting a job are very high. If you study in small colleges in empty cities with very few people, the chances of getting a part-time job and participating in campus interviews to get a good job after studying will be less. Similarly, we need to ensure that the university does not close down overnight. Some students ended up in the United States a few years ago in a situation where they left the university while studying and lost their money and degree.
Is the destination country willing to grant permanent residency to students from abroad ?
Countries like Japan, Canada, Australia, and Germany are now more willing to accept people from outside the country due to their current declining population. If you go to study in such countries, you have a higher chance of getting permanent residence there.
Meanwhile, America does not have such a problem. Even if you come to this country, get a good job and work for 10-15 years, there is no requirement to get residency. If you lose your job, you will have to leave the country within 60 days. Therefore, if you intend to continue abroad after your studies, you should research in advance what the way is to become a citizen of the country you are going to. All this information is clearly stated on the country’s immigration websites. Then, if you search YouTube for the reason why there are no Malayalis in the country, you will get the information. Don’t forget to compare the information from YouTube with the official website. Official websites will be in English. If you cannot read and understand it, you should at least try to improve your English before going abroad. If you spend one to two months trying to learn English politely, a class of fifty thousand rupees will be enough.
No matter what course you take, don’t think that you can do any job once you get there. In most countries, you will only be allowed to take up a job related to the course you are studying. Similarly, once you break the law and your visa expires or you work without a visa, the chances of getting permanent residency from that country are very low. You can’t just pay money and get a job like in our country.
Is the student going to study good at studying?
It is also foolish to leave a student who barely passes the exam in his home country and expect him or her to escape by studying abroad. Only if he or she is going to study well should he or she go abroad to study. As mentioned earlier, countries like Japan and Canada are ready to accept people from outside due to their decreasing population. This does not necessarily mean that you have to study in a college there. They may have opened up ways to accept people from outside countries in their immigration programs. Sometimes, heavy truck or lorry drivers will have more opportunities to go to some countries than a software engineer. Instead of taking out a loan of lakhs for the desire to go abroad, it will be cheaper to find out what kind of skills or which workers are preferred by countries that are interested in attracting foreigners due to their low population and study that job.
It is better to look at which country needs our talent and do what is necessary to go there than to blindly join a university abroad.
