Overseas Grad Studies for US Students?

foidulus asks: "I am currently a senior undergrad at Penn State looking into studying overseas. I spent 6 months working in Japan at an R&D lab and have published 1 paper with another pending publication(though I was researching security, however I would like to study bio-informatics). I am confident in my Japanese language skills, however it seems very tough to get any scholarships or funding there, but in the US a lot of schools seem to have tuition waivers and stipends(some even have health insurance!). Have any US Slashdot readers done any Masters/PhD work abroad? Do people from outside the US have any information on grad school in their country? What were your experiences? How did you get funding? Were your language skills adequate?" What differences can one expect when dealing with Graduate School in a foreign University compared to those in the United States?

Comments

Have you tried... the Japanese Government?

[ChibiOne]

The Japanese Government has a great set of scholarship programas for overseas students. You should try contacting the Japanese Embassy, and ask for information on the Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology).

Re:Generally, it's not a good idea

[Txiasaeia]

First of all, do you have anything at all to do with academia? If you did (i.e. read papers/journals on a regular basis), you'd realise that not all research is done in the US. Depending on your field (mine is literature), it's even considered to be much more prestigious if your degree comes from a world-renowned institution such as Oxford or Cambridge.

"Few people will have heard of where you studied, so they'll just assume the worst."

Come again? Ever heard of Oxford or Cambridge? What about Strasbourg in France? Or McMasters or McGill in Canada?

Yes, /. is US-centric, but stating that all degrees need to be earned in the US is somewhat ridiculous. Sorry to call you on this, but from your resume you've only earned a bachelor's degree - what gives you the credentials to determine whether carrying a foreign graduate degree is helpful or harmful?

Look into UK schools

[RDPIII]

The first one or two years in a North American (US/Canadian) graduate program are often not very different from the last two years in an undergraduate program: lots of required courses, not much research. I'm not saying that's bad: it can be good if you don't know what you want to do exactly, if you're entering a new field and need to catch up quickly on the basics, etc. North American graduate programs are therefore often longer than elsewhere. If you know exactly what you want to do and don't want to spend much time taking classes, look into the top schools in the UK: Edinburgh, Cambridge, Sheffield, etc. Most UK graduate programs (they're called post-graduate programs there) are focused much more exclusively on a research topic, right from the beginning (as I said, that can be good or bad). If you're seriously considering going there, look for studentships on jobs.ac.uk or other pertinent message boards. A studentship will typically provide you with three years of funding, which is considered sufficient for finishing a PhD in the UK (don't know if it actually is sufficient), compared with the nominal five years in North America.

Re:Look into UK schools

[cperciva]

My impression was that in the UK you have to do an MSc/MPhil/etc. first regardless and that requires some coursework.

At Oxford, students wanting to do a DPhil enter as "Probationary Research Students". If they've already done a MSc, they can transfer to DPhil status during their first term; otherwise, they spend a year taking courses, writing a "qualifying dissertation", and transfer to DPhil status at the end of their first year. In practice, many students holding Masters degrees decide to spend their first year taking courses anyway.

The idea behind this process is that being granted the status of DPhil student means that you have demonstrated an ability to do research, and it's hard to judge that based on an undergraduate degree.

In theory, someone could enter Oxford University as an undergraduate student, get their BA three years later, get accepted as a PRS, transfer to DPhil status, and finish their DPhil after a total of five years. In practice, most people who want to do research opt for a 4 year undergraduate MSc program and spend 4 years on their DPhil.

Try Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

I was born in Sweden but has studied at some other universities around the world (Switzerland, Japan) but I must say that I get more and more impressed with Swedish universities (especially the engineering faculties).

Most beginner universities offer Master's programs given in English, for bioinformatics there is for instance this
one.

By law higher education is free of charge in Sweden (!), ie no tuition fees (this applies to foreigners as well). For foreign student's I think there are various scholarship to cover living expenses as well.

Finland might be another good option, there are definately some world class universities overthere.

It's a mixed bag

[doktor-hladnjak]

I'm an American and did a BA in Computer Science and German at Berkeley, then completed an MS program in Germany. I was also offered to do a PhD in Germany, but in the end decided to return to the US instead, mostly for personal reasons. In the end, I couldn't imagine living in this city (Saarbruecken) for another 3 or 4 years and I got tired of only being able to afford to see my family (in California) once a year. Also, being a foreign student really places you on the outside of things not just socially, but also with regard to the dynamic of a research group. After the novelty wears off, you get tired of having to struggle with common things in a foreign system like getting your phone disconnected or filing a tax return.

Perhaps the biggest reason though, was that I really didn't plan to spend the rest of my life in Europe, so it made more sense to complete my degree in North America. The longer you spend abroad, the harder it becomes both logistically (more stuff) and socially (all your friends here vs. all your friends and family at home) to return.

Currently, in Germany there is a movement (pushed by some EU agreements I think) to convert the structure of the education system to match the British model. Traditionally, you earn a Diplom in Computer Science, which is equivalent to an MS. More and more schools are changing to a BS/MS track though, which will make things easier for foreign students to study in Germany and vice-versa. Unfortunately, most schools are still doing Diplom programs, but if you look around you can find MS programs around.

Simultaneously, a lot of departments have started offering courses in English (especially CS departments) in order to draw foreign students. Since hardly anybody learns German in school, it's very hard for German profs to get great foreign grad students like their counterparts based in English speaking countries. You could certainly complete the MS where I did (in Saarbruecken) without knowing any German and you'd still have a good number of courses to choose from. At some other places though, I've heard cases where students would need to take say 4 courses and there are only 4 offered in English, so you have to take those specific ones.

One big downside to doing an MS at a German university though, is that it's hard to get any financial aid. Because the MS has replaced the Diplom (which is/was the first degree earned), MS students are still viewed and treated as undergrads in almost every way. However, for foreign students, there are scholarships available, but obviously not everybody can actually get one. The biggest source is from DAAD, which I believe is funded by the German government. A couple of universities also have some scholarships as well, but I think these are few and far between. I was lucky to get one from the Max Planck Institute (via the IMPRS) located in Saarbruecken where I studied. It paid 715EUR/month, which is plenty to live on, since the cost of living is relatively low and you only need to pay around 100EUR in fees per semester.

Here, there are a lot of jobs on campus usually doing various programming tasks for a research group. Foreign students are allowed to work these jobs, but obviously there's no guarantee that you'll find a job for which you have the necessary skills.

For PhD students, there is obviously more funding available, but it really depends on your advisor's funding situation. Unlike in the US, where many, many profs have external funding from DOD, NSF, DOE, etc. in Europe there's much more of a reliance on money coming directly through the university. Hence, it seems to me that there are a lot of profs who cannot fund their students particularly well. However, those that do have lots of funding, pay their students quite well. After taking into account cost of living, the compensation is better here, but not by a huge margin.

As actual instruction goes,

Re:Generally, it's not a good idea

[datababe72]

Only sort of true. If you get a PhD in a foreign country, what matters most is who your advisor was and how well you published, not the name of the institution your degree is from. Actually, this is mostly true of American PhDs, too. This is because coursework is a minor part of the PhD (and in fact no part in some countries): the major part is your thesis project, where presumably your advisor influences how much you learn more than the rest of the institution does.

Only for the very big name institutions (Oxford, Harvard, ETH, MIT, etc.) will the insitution matter more than your advisor. For instance, I'm familiar with the work of some Japanese professors doing interesting bioinformatics and computational biology work, but couldn't tell you the name of their institution.

Maybe the institution matters more for a master's degree, though.

Unrelated (and unsolicited!) advice for the person who asked the original question: you don't really say what your background is, but you mention studying security. From that I assume your background is computers more than biology. You say you want to study bioinformatics. Tha'ts great... bioinformatics needs computer science types. However, wherever you go to study, be sure to get a good background in bio, if you don't already have one, and definitely get some wetlab experience. It will serve you well later.

Also, I haven't seen anyone mention the Fulbright fellowships. They exist to help people study overseas. Also, you can look at the Churchill fellowship if you are interested in studying in the UK. This may be a good choice for your field of choice. The EBI has a good presence in the UK, and would be an excellent place to study bioinformatics.

Good luck! I hope you get to go overseas. Don't worry too much about the pedigree. Just find an interesting project to work on with a good advisor. Science is very international, and your experience living in a different country will definitely be a plus later, as you work with teams of people from many different cultures.

Netherlands maybe?

[mad27]

Here in the Netherlands PhD students are paid a net salary between 1500 and 2000 EUR net per month. Also, everybody speaks (some form of) english; it is the lingua franca of research here. For a list of universities see this list