In a new feature to this newsletter, every month we will feature an interview from a prospective international graduate student. For the first newsletter of 2007, we travel to Madrid in Spain to meet Francisco de José, a 25-year-old computer engineering and management student at the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
I am currently employed by Sogeti, part of the Cap Gemini Group and have been there for two years. Between June 2005 and May 2006, however, I was completing my final project in order to complete my degree studies.
I want to pursue two masters programmes, though not at the same time, after I complete my bachelors degree. Firstly I aim to study a masters in computer science and after that an MBA so that I have a specific academic background as well as some management training. My preferred countries to study in are the UK or the USA, because I want to study in an English speaking country to improve my language skills.
Study abroad is very important. Working in the computing sector I think it is very important to know English well and have the opportunity to work and study with people from other countries and cultures. Study abroad will allow me to meet these two separate goals at the same time – I will have the opportunity to obtain a higher degree, improve my language knowledge, meet people from other countries and cultures and have the possibility to work in groups with many different people. Living away from Spain will make me more independent – I will have to do everything myself!
This is a good question. When I was considering universities in Spain I chose only based on the academic reputation of the institution. However, when I look at universities in the UK and the USA I have also had to take into account how much the universities charge for their tuition fees because it can be very expensive. After considering tuition fees I have also tried to talk to people that have already studied at different universities to get to know the real experience. I prefer not to use rankings as they can be different from one newspaper to another so I prefer to ask people about reputation. A very good example of this is my experience with applying to University College London last December – I chose this university because it fulfils all my conditions to achieve my personal goals, I can afford it and, when I spoke to a colleague that had studied there, I discovered that it had an excellent international reputation.
I have saved my own personal funds and it is also possible to get loans from banks in Spain. These have special conditions for those that want to study postgraduate degrees and these loans can be paid back over a reasonable period of time.
I had done some research into universities already on the Internet but coming to the fair was a very good experience. There was a lot of information and the event was very well coordinated and I was able to register for attendance with no cost and on the morning of the Madrid fair. I was impressed with the variety of universities offering postgraduate degrees and I spoke to representatives from the University of Miami, University College London, the University of Kent, Instituto de Empresa and Columbia University.
Yes I did. Representatives were very knowledgeable about their programmes and study opportunities and were interested in talking to me. The only difficulty I had was that some universities were unclear as to how to validate my Spanish degree for their admissions requirements.
Thank you Francisco – good luck with your masters degree!