<p>So, this is to all you international students who will be attending liberal arts colleges this fall.All of us here are aware of the amazing opportunites to be gotten from LACs but the sad reality is that people around the world have no idea what Bowdoin or Swarthmore are and why we are leaving our countries to attend these schools.So what do you think?Outside of maybe HSP(Yale is virtually unknown in my country)people will have NO IDEA what I'm talking about.So are our degrees going to be worth it or worthless?</p>
<p>That surely depends on where you are from and what you want to do with the degree. </p>
<p>In Germany college name recognition doesn’t really matter. (There are no big differences in selectivity and prestige between German universities, so employers don’t usually pay attention to these.) The two biggest obstacles:</p>
<p>(1) The liberal arts major. Employers are looking for applicants with hands-on training in something practical, not history majors.</p>
<p>(2) The undergraduate degree. The standard terminal degree in Germany is a Master’s degree, and it’s sometimes perceived as a bad sign when a student quits school with a Bachelor’s. </p>
<p>If I were to go back to Germany, my first priority would be to get a Master’s degree in something practical. Then the American undergraduate degree might actually make me a much stronger job applicant because I can showcase my English skills and intercultural competencies.</p>
<p>I believe the true worth of a LA educations is preparing you for graduate school. If you decide to go the LAC route, it is generally advised that one should proceed to professional or grad school. :)</p>
<p>Well,I’m an aspiring doctor so graduate school is basically non-negotiable in my case…I often find myself having to defend going for a bachelor’s degree THEN proceeding to med school to my friends who go straight into a 7year program or to undergrad business,engineering,acturial science,law etc etc…aargh the american system,gotta love it.barium,what if I majored in a “useful” major(economics for ex) ,how marketable would be a first degree from a LAC abroad?</p>
<p>Well, computer science is really the only liberal arts major that counts as useful from a German perspective. (A few econ courses might be a valuable component of a business education, but there isn’t much demand for stand-alone econ degrees.) Computer science is in enough demand that I wouldn’t be concerned about finding a job with it back in Germany, especially if I could also showcase an internship with Google, Microsoft, et al. </p>
<p>Re graduate school: I can’t speak for other countries, but I know that in Germany it’s not possible to change fields between undergrad and grad school. If I wanted to get a more useful graduate degree, I would have to do that in the States.</p>
<p>Are you asking because you are preparing a backup plan in case med school doesn’t work out, or are you just curious?</p>
<p>well this is one factor for me to consider too since LACs are virtually unknown over here in my country. besides the word ‘college’ is usually viewed with scorn as some lower tier form of education. (college is generally the term used for institutions offering pre-university degrees here)</p>
<p>however I really love the idea of a liberal arts education, unfortunately though most of my family members are against it considering how important university recognition is to get a job here. but the financial aid packages are truly to die for. </p>
<p>how does an international enter graduate school, does he/ she have to work for a few years before he/she is qualified to apply to a say, a business school? with all the talk of internationals unable to secure jobs in the states after graduation due to visa related problems, i fear it would ultimately force one back home with a solid yet unrecognized degree. </p>
<p>forgive me if i sound ignorant here (:</p>
<p>If you’re up for going to a great grad school LA education can definitely help. I just got told that there was this guy my counsellor knew and he has graduated from a fairly decent, yet not exactly TOP50 LAC and this year he got into LSE for grad studies, without his major having to do smth with economics.
So that all just really depends how you present yourself afterwards. Besides, I’m sure, if you aim high enough, your LAC will support you as much as they can to make your dreams come true, whereas a large state school or Ivy would have many brilliant applicants who aim high and hence are not that individually supported by their uni and that interesting (if haven’t done anything truly remarkable) to very selective grad schools.</p>
<p>
My experience as a liberal arts college student who was just applying to (American) PhD programs in mathematics: There’s a HUGE bias against liberal arts colleges in my discipline. Math at liberal arts colleges is perceived to be less rigorous, less advanced and the students less self-motivated and less independent than at research universities. </p>
<p>Several selective undergraduate summer and graduate programs have told me that they accepted me despite my liberal arts background and only because I had a strong letter from a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania (= a research university!). I was the only liberal arts college student accepted to the PhD program at MIT this year, and one of two accepted to the REU program at Cornell two years ago. (The other one was from Amherst.) </p>
<p>This may not be true in other disciplines, but I would not enroll at a liberal arts college with the expectation to get into a significantly more selective graduate program.</p>
<p>congratulations on your acceptances, barum – have you decided which school you’ll go to?</p>
<p>Congrats barium! Your story is indeed inspiring.Which LAC did you attend?</p>