<p>Okay I have been dreading this post for quite some time now.</p>
<p>I have been accepted to a pretty prestigious liberal arts school outside the US. I am an international student from a developing country, and the thing is I dunno what I want. </p>
<p>I have always said since 2nd grade I wanted to do "something sciences", and this school is pretty focused on the Arts. The only degrees I can get would be in physical sciences or life sciences. No engineering or anything. </p>
<p>I am not quite sure I wanna do Med, but if I go to this college, I won't be able to finance US Med school (not to mention get in in the first place :P). But I don't want to give up Med. Also, I'm not quite sure how someone with a graduate degree in eng after physical sciences would stand against someone who took on engineering since undergrad you know. </p>
<p>I don't want to give up the full scholarship but...</p>
<p>This is too ambiguous.</p>
<p>What country/school is this and what do you want to do?</p>
<p>I also don’t see the allure of American med schools.</p>
<p>Also, if you get a grad engineering degree, no one is gonna care if you didn’t do engineering undergrad.</p>
<p>
I agree with PurpleTitan that I wouldn’t advocate med school in the US to foreigners. If you want to become a doctor in the US, get your medical degree in a country where medical school is cheaper and then apply for residency in the US. There’s a well-established path for foreign-educated medical students to become licensed clinicians in the US.</p>
<p>
Just FYI: if you want to get a graduate engineering degree after a non-engineering Bachelor’s, you will be paying for at least the first year of that graduate degree. Make sure you can afford that before you decide to go that route. (Some graduate students are funded on research assistantships. However, you would not be a good candidate for those research assistantships initially with no engineering background whatsoever. Furthermore, you may not even formally be a graduate student until your 2nd or 3rd semester. I know several graduate engineering programs that will admit students from non-engineering backgrounds conditionally on the condition that they first complete the core undergraduate engineering coursework as an undergraduate or non-degree-seeking student.) </p>
<p>
Most liberal arts colleges don’t offer engineering degrees but that doesn’t mean that they are focused on the arts. They could still have very strong science programs. Sometimes they’ll even offer a few engineering-flavored courses in the science departments. Did you take a closer look at the science curriculum and the science electives that have been offered in recent years? Also, did you check if the college participates in a joint engineering program with a larger university? Many liberal arts colleges offer 3+2 programs, where you’d spend the first 3 years at the liberal arts college and the last 2 years at a university with an engineering program. After 5 years you’d get two Bachelor’s degrees, one from each institution. </p>
<p>@PurpleTitan @b@r!um
This university is quite new. It’s called Yale-NUS (pretty cool huh)</p>
<p>I have gone there to see for myself, and I have realized that as part of their core curriculum, I will only take one science class in the first year. However, I can easily take engineering classes in NUS as elective courses after that.</p>
<p>But the “what next” is killing me. I am Egyptian, and I have heard all the bad stuff about Med school in Egypt. I’m also not quite sure I can do my masters abroad after undergrad school in egypt. YaleNUS would be my escape at a young age if I may say. you know…</p>
<p>Sadly, there is no the 3+2 year program at YNC. I have been offered that at Wooster and turned it down for some reasons. </p>
<p>Yale-NUS sounds like a great school. If you want to be in science, I wouldn’t advocate medical school anyway.</p>
<p>What are your other alternatives? Turning down Yale-NUS without another recourse does not sound like a smart move.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan
well I have public medical school in egypt. </p>
<p>The thing is I’m not so sure a LA degree would get me anywhere in egypt. </p>
<p>Do you get what I mean?</p>
<p>I don’t wanna end up as a teacher ( I respect them ofc, just not me you know)</p>
<p>Yale NUS is a fantastic opportunity, especially since you don’t have an alternative.
What you COULD do is take a gap year but odds aren’t super high that you’ll be able
to get into a school that meets your academic needs better while meeting your financial need.
(Would you be able to attend a college without a full ride or full tuition scholarship?)
Why did you turn down Wooster (a top school for undergraduate research)?</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 because I was awed by YaleNUS at the time quite frankly.</p>
<p>Also, I was not sure I would want Engineering- not that i am now. Also, it wasn’t a full ride. </p>
<p>BUt then, what next after YNC? I wanna do sth I can do in Egypt (not many grad school and Arts majors and in public health are not worthwhile) . </p>
<p>This is from the website:
"Yale-NUS offers 14 majors: Anthropology, Arts & Humanities, Economics, Environmental Studies, Global Affairs, History, Life Sciences, Literature, Mathematical & Computational Sciences, Philosophy, PPE(Philosophy, Politics, and Economics), Physical Sciences, Psychology, and Urban Studies. You may also choose a minor from the same list or use your electives to explore the Yale-NUS curriculum.
Yale-NUS students have the opportunity to study at Yale for a summer, term, or entire year. Yale-NUS students also have access to 40 term-time and summer programs exclusive to Yale and Yale-NUS around the world. Beyond study, student can explore internship opportunities with one of our more than 52 global partners. "</p>
<p>As you can see, “Arts” encompases a lot of subjects - like “BA” (Bachelor of Arts) covers all academic subjects. It means you had a well-rounded education, not a technical one. Now, it’s true you can’t study engineering but you don’t even sound so sure that’s what you want. In addition, you have great opportunities to study abroad, at Yale and elsewhere, including in the summer (and I imagine that with a full ride, you could afford to study abroad in different countries about every summer!)</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 I KNOW :(</p>
<p>But THEN what… I will go back to Egypt with a liberal arts degree (that I respect), but I won’t be able to find a good job with that.</p>
<p>Is your goal to return to Egypt after your BA?
“I will go back to Egypt… but I won’t be able to find a good job with that.”
Well, no, you would apply to graduate schools in the US and with a Yale-NUs and (hopefully) good grades, research, internships in Singapore… you’d have no problem finding a graduate school at which to continue your science education. (I suspect that with a math degree and Singapore internships you’d even have a shot at transferring from IB in Singapore to IB in the US.) </p>
<p>@MYOS1634
IB?</p>
<p>Isn’t IB something totally different?!
And say I can afford grad school (which I doubt)… </p>
<p>Then I’ll be a professor? A researcher? Will there be enough security?</p>
<p>I fear I may return Egypt after the BA actually. You never know what’s in stock. </p>
<p>investment banking. Singapore is pretty good for banking internships.
Grad school will often be funded (PHD, especially in the sciences). Essentially, they’d pay you to study 
(and teach undergrads) Then, you’ll be an academic or a researcher in a lab, for a variety of companies.</p>
<p>Yep, Yale-NUS will give you opportunities in banking and consulting. Also, you don’t have to pay for STEM PhDs, as @MYOS1634 said, if you can get in. Also, you’ll likely get opportunities in Singapore and other places in Asia.</p>
<p>Basically, do you want to spend your life in Egypt or outside Egypt? Because Yale-NUS will open far more doors outside Egypt than any Egyptian school would.</p>
<p>You sound despondent, OP (“what will I do with a BA in Egypt?” – you can do many things, in fact: non-profits, politics, etc etc). Yale-NUS is a very fine opportunity, and it would be unwise to pass it up. I’ve seen many people get quite amazing international jobs just because they went to Princeton and Yale and even Michigan. Yale-NUS isn’t the same, but I’m willing to bet that the amalgamation of the names of these two schools is going to have a lot of weight. We’ll see when the school’s first class graduates. </p>
<p>Do you want to become a doctor in Eygpt? If you are sure about this, just drop everything and go to a med school in Egypt. However, if your goal is earn $$, and if you are under the impression that only engineers and doctors earn a lot, then you need to research on this matter. It’s not just them. As MYOS said, banking and finance are very lucrative too. Schools like Yale-NUS, however, aren’t geared towards helping you find the most lucrative path: they want you to find what it is you’re truly interested in. I’m not familiar with Yale-NUS’s exact relationship with NUS but if you have access to NUS’s labs and its science courses, you could apply for MD/PhD programs in the US (if that is your goal). These programs are fully funded and last for seven years. Yes, it’s ridiculously competitive, but many PhD programs are.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about returning to Egypt later if you really don’t want to. Odds are you won’t, and you will find a way to not do so (this I say after networking EXTENSIVELY with international students from all over the world).</p>