So I was born in the US and been living here my whole life and I don’t plan on it changing but… I have always wanted to go to a university in Japan, China, Hong Kong or Taiwan.
My parents are saying that is a foolish idea since I will be living in the US for the rest of my life anyways. Will it be harder to get a job in the US with a degree from outside the US?
Is it bad to go to a university outside the US if you don't plan on living in that specific country?
With some exceptions, such as Oxford or Cambridge, and a few Canadian Universities, you will find it much harder to land a first job with a foreign university degree than one from a US university. Consider going to a US university and doing a year abroad, perhaps during junior year, instead.
If you plan to get a graduate degree in the U.S. (such as an MS, MBA or PHD), then getting your bachelor’s in another country is fine, especially if it helps you increase your language skills in a high demand language like Chinese, or add another language to your skill set like Japanese.
My daughter also wanted to get her bachelor’s in another country, but her dad (originally from another country) was so against it that she agreed to stay in the U.S. and just do a study abroad program for a semester. Now he is pressuring her not to do a study abroad program. It’s ridiculous and short-sighted. He has an old-fashioned idea that it’s a waste of time because the U.S. is the place to be. The business school at her university thinks differently – it considers study abroad so important that it requires all of its students to study abroad. My daughter is not in the business school, but I told him about this to make a point that study abroad is highly desired now.
Almost all European university students either study abroad or do a six-month internship abroad, learning another language and culture, and many Asian students try to do the same. American students will be at an increasing disadvantage in the job market against students from other countries applying for the same jobs, when those other students are fluent in two or more languages and have experience living and often working abroad.
I suggest you look into some of the dual country/dual degree programs offered by some universities. For example, Georgia Tech has an electrical or computer engineering program where you spend the first and last year in Atlanta, and the second and third years in South Korea at KAIST, and you wind up with a degree from both places. Clemson has a business degree with a university in Denmark that is handled similarly. Yale has an entire campus located in Singapore, and you apply directly to study at that campus (I doubt your parents would object to an Ivy education if you got accepted there). The University of Montana has an International Geosciences degree that is conducted partially in Europe. These are just some examples, and they also demonstrate that the educational community thinks that getting experience abroad is highly valuable.
I hope you are able to spend some time abroad. It is life-changing.
Then I assume you have been primarily educated in English and not in your parents’ mother-tongue. Do you speak/read/write any of those Asian languages on a COLLEGE level?
Do you need financial aid to attend college? It’s unlikely you will be able to use US federal FA.
Finding a job in the US afterwards could be problematic, since colleges in those countries are unlikely to have undergraduate job placement services/ job fairs for US employers, the way US colleges will have.
What’s wrong w just going a semester or year-long study abroad?
I can understand if your parents are reluctant to let you study overseas for 4 years in a culture that is unfamiliar without family support nearby if that is your situation. Navigating the bureaucracy in a foreign culture and language unassisted can be daunting. Problems inevitably arise and you need someone to advocate for you - most foreign universities are not set up to be ‘in loco parentis’ the way they are in the US. I can also understand some concern about ‘missing out’ on the American college cultural experience, especially if they didn’t have that themselves - it’s especially well set up to ‘launch’ young people on their adult lives with a mixture of independence and oversight that works for most people. For some jobs, the professional alumni networks and career placement support can also help especially initially. Overseas study can also be a problem if you plan to attend US medical schools which only recognize some international universities’ coursework for pre-reqs.
The better option is to attend a US school and study abroad. Or take a gap year to live and work overseas in the country you are interested in before entering or during college. The American students we know who have made a success of studying abroad for all 4 years either pick schools with a long history of catering to Americans (McGill, St. Andrews, etc…), are set as an American-style college (American University in XXXX) or the student has dual citizenship and is bi-cultural, nearly bi-lingual and has family there (in which case the education is often free or nearly so). In your case, you may want to check out NYU’s campus in Shanghai (we know two students there who seem to be enjoying the experience.)
Going to an accredited college outside the US can be a fine idea…but there are a lot of Ifs and Buts…
- Language. In another thread you were looking at taking lower level Chinese classes. If you go to university as a full-time, regularly enrolled student in another country they will expect you to have full fluency in the local language- even if they teach in English. All the pieces of both college and everyday life will be in the local language. That is not a reason not to go, but it means that you need to either have strong language skills and / or the confidence to tough it out through the inevitable challenges of not being understood/not understanding/things going wrong and needing to be fixed. Some of that is language skill; a lot of that is temperament.
- Independence. By international standards, even the biggest, most impersonal US universities hold student's hands as they go through college. Most international universities have relatively few students who are not familiar with the university system, so they have even less experience of international students and what they are likely to need in the way of supports. The bigger the gulf between you and the culture/language of the university that you go to, the more important your temperament. You will need to be able to figure out a new and strange system for yourself. Again- it is entirely possible, and I have known people who have done it and said it was the best adventure ever. It's just important for you to be realistic about yourself.
I am more sanguine about the jobs aspect. You don’t indicate what field you are interested in, but getting good summer internships with name-brand companies in the US could give you a great balance of seriously good language skills and experience with familiar companies. You could be a dream come true for some of the multi-nationals- get hired for their Asian operations and transfer back to the US when you are ready.
You don’t give any indication as to your family’s background- if you have extended family in country X that is very different than going on your own! But I also note from another thread that you are anxious about possibly having to speak in class, which makes me wonder if you are somebody who will be ok with being as assertive as you need to be to navigate university abroad- especially in a new language.