<p>I have a somewhat outlandish but serious question. I go to a decent university (top 50), planning on getting a BA in the near-ish future... so I'll get right to my question, would going to graduate school in Puerto Rico affect my future employment prospects? One big draw is the money aspect (school in PR is ridiculously cheap) but also the culture of Puerto Rico - I have been there twice and fell in love with it (though I don't know what it would be like to live there). And lastly, because it's part of the US and I wouldn't have to deal with student visas and the like. I can manage well in Spanish and tentatively am planning to study abroad in the Dominican Republic next summer if I can muster up a decent scholarship. </p>
<p>anyway, I'm just wanting to know your opinions as parents and people who actually have world experience on this. How would employers in the US view a graduate degree (I would most likely be getting an MBA) from Puerto Rico? One thought I had is that employers might view me as a more diverse candidate if I willingly went to a university where I had to adapt to a new culture and language. but the other thought I had is that they might look at the degrees for what they are - I mean, top schools in Puerto Rico obviously aren't comparable to top schools in the US... I know my attitude may change, but I was just considering this as an interesting possibility. </p>
<p>Where do you want to live and work in the future? If Puerto Rico it’s a great idea to go to school there. If elsewhere your knowledge base and connections won’t be the same as if you went to school where you intend to work. Employers know their regional schools best- and their regional schools know their employers best. Save PR for vacations at this time in your life. You can likely more easily get a job in PR with a degree from a major US college than vice versa. I presume you are fluent in Spanish as well.</p>
<p>An MBA from a Puerto Rico would be next to worthless outside of PR. An MBA from a stateside university is much more valuable both in PR and in the US. To be employed in PR you really should be completely biligual. </p>
<p>The cons to living in PR:
really bad traffic in San Juan area and no one follows any traffic rules.
roads can be in really bad shape
high property crime. Your car will be stolen if you don’t use a steering wheel lock. If you live in a house, it will have bars on all the windows and sometimes barbed wire/spikes etc on the walls to prevent thieves.
Salaries are unlikely to be as high as you would get on the mainland.</p>
<p>My advice: many employers, especially in the tech fields, will view your MBA more favorably if you have several years of work in the field prior to getting the degree. Get a job, work for a while, and then go for an MBA.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. i’m no longer really even considering this. not sure what I was thinking! I was up quite late researching the Puerto Rican university I was considering and found out that the students there have been engaged in violent strikes and protests almost continuously for like 3 years. last year it even got to the point that they called off all classes for the summer - not because of monetary issues but because the protests had gotten so dangerous and widespread that professors and administrators were being beaten by angry students (the strikes were over a tuition increase of 800 dollars, which struck me as funny because that’s a laughably small amount for stateside unis). No thanks… i also read some opinions online from Puerto Ricans who very frankly advised people not to move there because of increased crime due to the recession, corrupt local governments and police, etc. </p>
<p>i think what I really ought to do is obtain a MA or MBA from a reputable stateside university and satisfy my desire to live in a foreign country by just doing some sort of extended exchange program in a Spanish-speaking area … i’ve also considered other routes such as Peace Corps in between undergrad and grad school… I do speak Spanish because i used to speak it with my dad, but realistically, i can’t manage nearly well enough to complete a challenging degree completely in the language. </p>
<p>@ ChrisTKD, I don’t know where you come from, but the University of Puerto Rico is one of the most prestigious universities in the Caribbean area. Most of the companies from the mainland comes here in search of our students, so an MBA from Puerto Rico University is indeed valuable. </p>
<p>Regarding salaries, yes, compared to the mainland, the salaries are low.
Taxes are high, and there is a big problem regarding crime issues.
But it all depends what area you live and hang out. </p>
<p>How about getting your MBA at the Univ. of Miami? Spanish is spoken pretty much everywhere in Miami, and in some sections of town it’s hard to find anyone speaking English. You could consider living in a heavily-Spanish part of town so it would <em>feel</em> like you are in a foreign country. But then drive a mile or so and you’d be back in the US where at least some of the people speak English.</p>