Everything you need to know about studying abroad

A first degree is no longer enough in the marketplace unless you want to go into self-employment or business where academic qualification beyond a bachelor’s degree may not be necessary. Nowadays, most job seekers are armed with such high qualifications that one-degree-holders find themselves at a disadvantage. This phenomenon has been termed as academic inflation.

That is why many people go for Master’s degree. So how do you decide where to go for your Master’s degree. Some opt for local universities while others prefer abroad. Here are the key factors to consider if you decide to study abroad:

Cost

Whether you have a scholarship or you are funding yourself, you must research on the cost of living in various countries. Universities in big cities such as London, New York, Tokyo and California are much more expensive. Life in such cities is improbably high. In a city like New York, renting or sharing a room will cost upwards of $700 (Sh70,000), and that is when you live very far from the city or in one of the less appealing parts of the boroughs. Even if you have a full-scholarship (in most cases you will be barred from working), you will still find the cities impossibly expensive.

Research

Developed countries usually emphasise research. But the East seems to be doing better in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) courses than anywhere else.

“Japan is far ahead. The Japanese are very meticulous, provide resources and the levels of education intimacy is very high. You engage with lecturers through all platforms all the time, and they welcome any idea,” says Wellington Waithaka, a student at Kazanawa University, Japan.

He says the private sector offer scholarships to ambitious and hardworking students.

Harriet Ocharo, who studies computer science, also at Kazanawa University says: “There is funding for research. Master’s and PhD programmes are structured around laboratories. It is like your supervisor has a physical space, and has space for students under him in the same building.”

She, however, finds the hierarchical structure of the Japanese societies a tad stifling: “If you are a junior student, you cannot argue with your senior, let alone the professor, even though there are good ones who don’t insist on hierarchy.”

Language

Studying outside Kenya may force you to learn a new language which can be as complex as Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, German or French. Even English-speaking countries will insist on a test of English as a foreign language (TOEFL) before admission. More and more universities are doing away with the requirement if your undergraduate was in English, but other tests are mandatory. You can, though, negotiate with the school to waive the need for the language tests in the case of English. For other foreign languages, there is no shortcut; you have to learn the language. The French, for instance, are stubbornly opposed to speaking any other language but French.

Racism

At the outset of the Ebola scourge in West Africa, a Korean restaurant put up a notice saying that they would not admit African students, sparking furious online protests.

A Kenyan female student in Korea then decried the blatant racism that and said, even if it may not be overtly there, it is everywhere you look. Kenyans studying in the East, though, concur that racism there is subdued. In the West, it is much more on the surface, now even more conspicuous with the rise of conservatism that led to the Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump.

However, big cities tend to be more accommodating. In South Africa, there is a racism and xenophobia problem that not even Kenyans are spared.

In South Africa, you could meet a white person and he thinks you are another “hopeless” black man until they hear you speak and start asking questions about your “good English”. When you meet and interact with a black man, the first thing they speak about is how Westernised you are, or that you are a makwerekwere (a pejorative term for black, non-South Africans).