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?

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,