What’s it like saying goodbye to your friends from high school?

Creative commons photo by Flickr user James Almond

I never thought about this, but now I feel like it is one the hardest questions that I am answering. I can’t believe that it is already the end of the year. It is very sad. I have spent two years of school at Kent, and it is like my home now.

It will be hard to say goodbye for my friends, but I will never say goodbye to them, instead I will say see you soon. I guess this way it will make me feel better mentally.

Even though it is sad to leave, I think I am happy to have done my best during these last two years, and I have grown a lot as a student and as a leader. One of the things that I would really miss is the positive attitude of our faculty members, and stuff. At Kent, I can’t even imagine any school being better than them.

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Congratulations to everyone in the graduating class of 2011 – particularly our own graduating bloggers, Nareg Seferian (St. John’s College ’11) and Farima Afaq (Kent School ’11).

In honor of graduation, here’s a commencement speech given last year at Lynn University by international student (and MBA recipient) Kuda Biza from Zimbabwe:

My bags are packed, my final papers submitted, my apartment sublet, and as of next week I’ll be gone from George Washington University and the United States until the end of August.  It’s been a fast nine months, but I’ve officially reached the halfway point of my two-year graduate school program.

To mark reaching the end of year one, I’ve put together some superlatives for my first year at graduate school:

Biggest Adjustment:

Working on a class assignment

My first blog post last October was all about the workload difference between graduate school and undergrad.

Having to read 1,000 pages a week for class, depending on the week, was pretty miserable sometimes.  There were definitely some long nights in the library where I wanted to be anyplace else.

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As much as we hate having to share cautionary tales, they do teach us what sort of scams to look out for.  Bloomberg published a long article about the use of recruiting agents in China, and how it can result in students being overcharged and led into bad situations.

I’m sure this isn’t the case with every agent, and some schools find them a useful way to attract students in countries they can’t send admissions officers to.  But as this article shows, there’s reason to at least be wary.  And as we’ve said time and again, if anything seems suspicious or slightly off, do some background research!

Has anyone worked with a recruiting agent, or know anyone who has?  Tell us about your experience in the comments.

EducationUSA Iran has transcribed and translated a number of interviews with Iranian students about their experiences applying to U.S. colleges.  They’re worth reading, and also available in audio format for Persian speakers.

Take a look in particular at the series in which a student named Arash talks about the process of getting a visa.  There is no U.S. embassy in Iran, so Iranian students face particular challenges in getting their paperwork together and going for their interview.

Part 1: Setting up an interview with the embassy in Ankara

Part 2: The visa interview

Part 3: Advice for other Iranian students

I have to tell you that my experience with regards to the application for continuing my education abroad shows that this process is a complicated and long one, which requires much time and energy. The students must prepare a great deal of information from valid sources if possible. In particular because we need to deal with a number of organizations and institutes from various places, different countries, and that each one has its own specific manner of proceeding with which we need to get familiarized.

Creative commons photo by Flickr user James Almond

As I write, I am feeling a culmination of sorts, as recent weeks have been filled with events for seniors graduating from St. John’s College. We had an emotional dinner with students and the faculty, a picnic, a softball game, and a formal ball all lined up last week before Commencement itself, which was this past weekend.

“Commencement” is a funny word. I remember that when my brother was graduating from the American University of Armenia, he commented on what that word might entail. The event itself seems to mark an end to things, But the word “commencement” actually means “beginning.” The idea, I expect, is that one stage of one’s life and education has come to an end, but another – a greater one, perhaps – is only just about to get started.

I would love to look back and discuss my time at this wonderful institution in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I have spent eight semesters, at how unique an education it is in reading and discussing the great books.  St. John’s really tries to provide a classical liberal, Renaissance education. I am all the more richer for it, and I am confident in saying that it could not have happened as it did in any other country.

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Thanks to those of you who keep submitting terms for our Glossary of Confusing Words. If I haven’t gotten around to defining your word yet, I promise I’ll get there soon!

Today we’re defining: “anyways” and “cookie-cutter.” They’re not exactly related to studying in the U.S., but they are both common idiomatic or slang words that you may hear in the U.S.

1) Anyways

You asked:

Recently this word is being used whereas the word “anyway” is the correct form. This appears to be an Americanization of the original English word.

It’s true that in everyday speech, you may hear people replace the word “anyway” with the word “anyways.”  For example: “I never really liked him anyways.”  Most of the time you’ll only hear this when “anyways” is being used as an adverb at the beginning or end of a sentence.

You’d never see “anyways” used in formal written English though, so don’t put it in an application essay.

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We’ve spent the first half of this week getting realistic – talking about the situations in which someone might choose not to study in the U.S. Coincidentally, The Telegraph newspaper published a story yesterday explaining why studying in the U.S. is a great option for British students.

“Many world-class institutions in the US are not well known in Britain, but thanks to a less specialised curriculum, the US can be the right place if you want to expand your horizons rather than narrow your study options,” they write, talking to two students about why they decided to attend college in the States.

Though it feels like most people talk about improving their career prospects or getting a better education when they discuss why they want to study in the U.S., in an informal survey on our Facebook page, the majority of you said the cultural experience of studying abroad was the most important reason to study overseas.

Cultural Immersion

Cheerleaders at George Mason (Creative commons photo by Flickr user J Rosenfeld)

For Nareg, it was the “spirit of adventure” that drove his decision to come to the U.S.:

The experience of it all was definitely a major factor: to be away from family and friends, in an unknown environment, is just the kind of adventure which would educate more than any book or lecture could.

Farima agrees.  She says her initial motivation for coming to the U.S. as a high school student was to get a better education, but over time it has been the cultural exposure that has kept her here:

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Screen grab from Abdullah's interview on the Mizzou international students blog

“I believe the education system in U.S. ranked the best in the world, and people who have studied in the United States are offered better jobs with better salaries and it’ll be easier for them to find a job,” said Abdullah Habibzai, a civil engineering student at the University of Missouri in an interview for the “Mizzou” international students blog. “That was my ambition since many years ago, to complete my high education in the United States.”

Studying in the U.S. was Abdullah’s ambition, but must it be yours?

In this post, the second in our series looking at the pros and cons of studying in the U.S., we take a more in depth look at some of the factors that may influence your decision.

Some Research

The top three reasons students choose to study overseas are: (1) Higher quality of education; (2) career improvement; (3) the chance to live overseas, according to the British Council’s Student Decision Making Survey. Prospective students hoping to study in the U.S. in particular prioritized improving their job prospects in the survey.

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For a whole academic year on this blog we have talked about what it’s like to study in the U.S. and how to make it happen, giving tips on everything from getting financial aid to acclimating to American society. But let’s be clear – our goal is not to say that studying in the U.S. is your only option, or that it’s the right choice for everyone.

In this series of posts, we’ll explore the pros and cons of studying in the U.S., and talk to students who studied abroad and who stayed at home to learn how they made their choices.

Seeking Opportunity

University of the Punjab, one of many universities in Pakistan (Creative commons photo by Flickr user Guilhelm Vellut)

Arwa Shahzad and Amna Tariq Shah are two educated, well-spoken young women from Pakistan. And, uniquely for this blog, they have both received their education exclusively in Pakistan.

At 17, Arwa is just beginning her higher education at Punjab College in Gujranwala, Pakistan. She says education is vital to her own future and the future of her country.
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The New York Times has spent the past few months following the journeys of several high school seniors as they apply to college for a series called “The Choice.”  Somehow we missed this before, but one of those students is an international student from Mongolia!  In her series of blog posts, Uyanga Tamir has written about how her need for financial aid influenced her decision of where to apply:

Additionally, most colleges require international students to provide their own tuition. Only the top schools consider an international student’s application without looking at his or her financial circumstance.

This is why colleges like Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth are on my list; they are need-blind to international students and meet the fully demonstrated needs of every admitted student.

She also discussed the process of applying to schools outside the U.S., where tuition was lower and scholarships were more plentiful, and most recently wrote about her decision to matriculate at Princeton University (my alma mater!).

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Shu Wen Teo (Photo from her Twitter account, @shuwenteo)

Shu Wen Teo is a sophomore at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire, where she studies biology (and chemistry, and business administration, and would study political science too if she had the time).  She comes from Malaysia, and in addition to keeping up her busy academic schedule, she has devoted a lot of time to helping other Malaysian students learn about studying in the U.S.

Shu Wen has participated in education events back home in Malaysia and runs the Malaysia Scholarship blog – a blog devoted to finding and publicizing scholarship opportunities for Malaysian students.

We talked over Skype recently about her struggle to adapt during her first year at Colby-Sawyer, why she’s grateful for her liberal arts education, and how studying in the U.S. has changed her as a person.

Have you had a good experience so far?

The first year, not really.  I was really passive when I first came here, probably because of the culture shock. … Then the second year I started to get active and I got involved in the cross-cultural club particularly, and promoting cultural differences in the college.

I’m looking forward to the junior year, actually, because things have been getting better.

Did you ever regret your decision to come here?

A little bit, actually.  Because the way of teaching and learning system here is really different and I was not used to it.

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Thank you to those of you who keep submitting suggestions for our Glossary of Confusing Words.  We actually have a bunch of words to get to, so if you submitted a word and we haven’t defined it yet, sorry for the delay, but we’ll get to it eventually!

Recently we had two separate submissions asking about words you’re likely to hear as part of a question on a test.  So if you’re planning to take a standardized test for admission to a U.S. college or university, pay attention.  The words are:

Establish, construct, build and assess

You’ll usually hear these words on essay-based exams, when you are being asked to write an essay to support a position or thesis.

So you might be asked to “establish” that something is true, or to “construct” an argument in favor of something. You may also be asked to “discuss” a certain topic, “develop” an argument, “assess” a particular claim, or “support” a position.

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