US vs UK for engineering

Student Lounge International Students
1

<p>Hello, i have a really hard time deciding whether to go to US or UK to study biomedical engineering.</p>

<p>In the UK, I have been accepted at UCL (university college london), university of Bath, university of Bristol, and university of Nottingham. </p>

<p>In the US, i have been accepted at University of Illinois Urbana-champaign, University of Maryland, Johns hopkins university and George Washington University (in DC). </p>

<p>For the UK, I would have to pay oversea fee(12 000 pounds= 24 000$ per
year excluding room and board). No financial aid is provided. </p>

<p>Although Johns Hopkins is very good for biomedical engineering, i haven't received a penny from them. George washington university, however, has given me full-ride. Maryland and Urbana-champaign offered me very little in aid.</p>

<p>So i would like to know if it is worth it getting alot of debt for a better institution (either in US or UK) than George Washington University. If so, which one would you advise me to choose apart from johns hopkins.</p>

<p>i'll appreciate some advices.Thanks</p>

2

<p>Your UK options are likely to results in you achieving a Masters degree so when calculating costs, keep in mind that in the US you will hvae to pay 4 years of undergrad + grad school. If I were you I'd go to UCL.</p>

3

<p>How much money do you have? JHU seems to be the best option but if you gotta take on huge debts for it, I dunno, it might be smarter to go with UCL. How come you didn't apply for Imperial?</p>

4

<p>actually, the UCL degree is a Bachelor's, not Masters, and i don't think Nottingham gives Masters either, so it'll be the same in the end...it all depends where you want to work ultimately, and what kind of education you want...if you want to study a broad range of things, then any university in the US is good for you, but if you only want to do biomedical engineering, then UK's better.</p>

<p>i would UCL or urbana-champaign over George Washington...they're a lot more expensive yes, but the degree should be worth it...</p>

5

<p>peafire, i did not apply to Imperial because of the tuition fee (17000pounds=34000$ for me) and imperial is in London(Really EXPENSIVE)! So i only applied to one school in London.
Is UCL that good in engineering? I visited it in feburary, and i wasn't impressed AT ALL by the school. They might be excellent in other subjects, but not for engineering. (23rd in UK for biomedical)</p>

<p>I'm thinking going to GW for a year than transfer out to a better school would be a better idea than getting all that debt.</p>

6

<p>They're not a top engineering school but better than the rest on your list, except for JHU of course. If you can live with having to take out loans, I'd go for JHU.</p>

7

<p>I'd say UCL and JHU are on roughly the same level, although UCL is more known in the rest of the world than JHU is.</p>

<p>I think the choice is between these two and ultimately it will depend on where you want to live and work.</p>

8

<p>Oh wait - I just read that you have a FULL RIDE to GW? Does that include living costs? I would take that offer in a second.</p>

9

<p>Um... UCL is not more known in the rest of the world than JHU, but the other way around.</p>

10

<p>JHU is not as prestigious as Imperial, LSE, Oxford and Cambridge either.</p>

<p>Either way, neither school is really a household name outside its respective country. I still think UCL is better known abroad, but I guess we can agree to disagree on that point then.</p>

11

<p>Yes Johsua...LSE is prestigious for its engineering courses...:P</p>

12

<p>JHU is more prestigious than ppl think. UCL is pretty much unknown by the average Joe, but a few very well educated ppl might have heard of it.</p>

13

<p>As I said, we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.</p>

14

<p>I would also say tha UCL might be a bit better known internationaly thank JH but not by much.</p>

15

<p>Yes, we won't reach a consensus since there's really no way to quantify prestige exactly.</p>

16

<p>Yes, but academic excellence does not always correlate with prestige.</p>

17

<p>Very true, but "those in the know" don't influence the prestige to a great extent. Actually "those in the know" are a dime in a dozen. Tom and Dick probably won't have a clue about JHU, but tell them that you go to Harvard and their eyes will light up.</p>

18

<p>I would not go as far as saying JHU is prestigious in the UK.</p>

19

<p>Wow, aren't we witty!!</p>

20

<p>Josh is right though, it's prestigious in the UK.</p>