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QS Research - the postgraduate world today
Finally, costs. Your choice of where to study so often hinges on how much it actually costs for academic tuition and living expenses. Financial aid and scholarship packages are commonplace, either offered by individual institutions or national governments, keen to encourage the very best international students to their country. But these schemes tend to be devilishly competitive and heavily oversubscribed. In the QS Research/ QS World Grad School Toursurvey, where respondents were asked to rank in order of priority their major source of financing for postgraduate study, 77% indicated they were relying on some form of scholarship funding to cover their costs. Some countries allow you to offset these costs by allowing you to work as well as study, but this is not common to all. As a very broad guide, quality and brand of a particular postgraduate programme tends to be associated with high cost – as with anything in contemporary society.
In the information age that we live in, finding out about international postgraduate study opportunities is relatively simple, but discovering useful and valid information is not so easy. Many website and publications purport to offer definitive guides and surveys on what is the ‘best’ university or the ‘best’ programme of study but so often these publications are misleading. The best place to start your research is the relatively unsophisticated approach of actually talking to people who already have postgraduate experience – where and what did they study? Why did they study? What was it like? Would they recommend it as (a) an academic experience, (b) as a life experience or (c) as a way of enhancing their career prospects? Institutional websites and prospectuses are also good points of reference to get a full understanding of the programmes of study offered, who is teaching the programme and what you can expect from the academic experience.
But the opportunity to meet admissions staff and academics of institutions you are interested in is also something you should seek. It is rarely practical to travel to your prospective institution for a visit or interview, but touring education fairs such as the QS World Grad School Tour, held in October and November this year in 22 cities across Europe, Asia, North and Latin America, provide an exciting platform for potential students and universities to meet one another. Such events offer a dynamic and worthwhile format for those seeking information on masters and PhD programmes and opportunities to have your questions answered face-to-face.
Further details about QS World Grad School Tourare available at www.topgraduate.com
