Study abroad

High-quality teaching and the availability of scholarships were two of the most important factors that students looked at when choosing a university, according to this year’s International Student Survey.

Carried out by educational consultants Hobsons, it questioned 62,366 students from 65 universities around the world. Of these, 27,955 students were considering studying in the UK. 

As a Filipino student pursuing an Erasmus Mundus master of arts in public policy, the Central European University (CEU) has provided a perfect balance of academic inquiry, career development and socialising.

I am consistently encouraged to ask about my fellow students’ life stories, as they have such different experiences to my own. And I find that this is helping me to make better decisions, both as a student and as a future policymaker.

I joined the doctoral programme at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology in 2013. I came to know about UNMC from an alumnus, Dr Mahek Sharma of the BMB department. I was interested in pursuing my doctoral degree in a medical centre, and UNMC seemed to be the perfect fit for me.

More than half of the world’s population uses the internet and social media users have increased by 21 per cent since 2015, with 2.8 billion users reported globally in 2017.

I was eager to make the best of an exchange semester in France by integrating myself into the Toulousain lifestyle. My exchange college was the Institut national des sciences appliquées de Toulouse (part of the Federal University of Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées).

My journey to the American University of Sharjah (AUS) was a complicated one. 

During the semester before studying abroad, I took a choir class with a professor who previously taught at AUS and worked with a choir he created in the UAE. I made friends in that exchange, over Skype, who studied at AUS, and who ultimately convinced me to come here.

Coming to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in 2012, after graduating from high school in Toronto, Canada, was my first time coming to Europe. I never thought that I would find a place as culturally diverse as Toronto, but I was proven wrong when I came to RCSI.

UK students believe their university experience will lack cultural diversity if the numbers of international students were to decline, research from the National Union of Students has found.

The NUS undertook the survey in December 2016 in response to the announcement of a consultation on the entry requirements for international students at the Conservative Party conference earlier that year.

The aim was to find out how UK students thought their university experience would be affected if there were reduced numbers of international students.  

Six months have gone by and I am still surviving in a foreign country, trying to make family, fellow citizens and my sponsor back at home proud. The idea of studying overseas is extremely appealing to many, and the Netherlands is a student-friendly country with an environment that enables you to adapt quickly and remain on your feet, despite the many challenges you may come across. 

I had the idea to study in Japan during my second year of high school. Having been drawn to Japanese student life through movies and dramas, I especially liked the idea of school festivals and club activities – most Chinese schools don’t have similar events. So after the final examination in the second year of high school, I started to learn Japanese by myself and shared my idea of studying abroad with my parents.