Studying Abroad - Where to look!

Being the vella that I’ve become post-boards, I thought of doing something that makes me look like I do have some interest in education after all. After being spammed to an extreme limit on Facebook, Gmail and basically every ad-displaying website, I decided to pay this great international education fair a visit. I got to know some interesting stuff, here’s the gist of it all. 

This education fair was for those students planning to apply abroad. That means no flyers of some random Shri XYZ-ji Institute for Technical Studies or posters telling you not to give up because you didn’t clear the IIT-JEE. Nope, this was different. As I entered the hotel and asked the concierge, I had in mind an impression of a formal looking setup with pavilions of different international universities and formally dressed students with huge binders of portfolios and certificates. Boy, was I wrong!!  
 

I entered the fairly large convention area only to be pushed into a line for registration forms. Having completed the registration process twice online, I smugly walked to the counter; only to get my wall of haughtiness shattered by the bored looking lady – they didn’t accept e-copies of the form. Apparently, the forms had no reference numbers and had to be printed out. So I filled in the form for a grueling third time, with not too pleasant thoughts about the organizers in my head. Anyway, before long we (I had dragged my friend along) were directed towards the “pre-counselling” area.

Amused by these separate sections for pre-counselling, counselling and post-counselling, I eagerly went to another bored lady sitting behind the desk. She marked a few names on my list and I was ready to go – finally, I headed towards the counselling section!  The grand counselling area was quite the warren. There were a variety of varsities, right from New Zealand to Canada with the US thrown somewhere in between. Now I can’t go into the details of how my experience was, and how I was almost trampled by pappa-jis looking for a suitable ‘collage in the abroad’ for their son who was clearly not in the mood to walk (Whoa, I digress a lot!) … here’s all I got to learn.
 

1. Canada has two kinds of institutions: Colleges – which award diplomas and prep you for working in the industry, and Universities – which are research oriented and award degrees. You might find the uncommon exception here and there, but largely this is the case.

 2. The United Kingdom seems like a better option for Mass Communications than Canada or NZ. They’ve got better courses and much more to offer.

 3. Scholarships: I’m not too sure about Business, but almost everywhere else, you can’t depend on a scholarship to go abroad. Most places didn’t offer scholarships, none at all at the entry-level. A few places did have merit-based scholarships but they too were minuscule compared to the eye-popping figures of the tuition cost. On a side note, the executives of Aberystwyth University did say that I could be considered for their merit based scholarship! (Not relevant but I wanted to put it out there! it’s fun to show off, right?)

 4. IELTS: You need it for Canada. Not so much for UK. If you scored more than 80% in your English Board Exam, they’ll give you an IELTS waiver. How cool is that?

 5. Sandwiches: No, not the food! I’m talking about the sandwich courses that many universities now offer. In fields like Hotel Management, many varsities were ready to offer an intensive year-long internship as part of the compulsory course. Best part? The fee for that year is significantly lower!

 6. Finally, the people at Leeds Metropolitan University were really nice. They gave me free candy. And a fridge magnet. And a huge book that I’m guessing is the brochure. Haha, but on a serious note, it seemed like a good place with a wide range of options available. If you’re looking at the UK, I suggest you check them out. Another place that left an impact was Fraiser International College in Canada.

All in all, it was a fun-filled and rather informative experience. I’m not really planning to go abroad, but if you are, I hope this helped! Hope to see you in your dream college! Be sure to check out mycollegesabroad.com for more info and any help you may need!