I’d like to recommend the following article to any student considering graduate study in the U.S. It has an excellent summary of the benfits of undertaiking such study as well as a collection of perspectives of international students that have taken the U.S. graduate school route. A taste -
Last year, some 2,500 students packed their bags to take their postgraduate degrees in the United States. It was a record for Britons going to North America, with student numbers increasing 4 per cent on the previous year. Such statistics leave prospective postgraduates at home scratching their heads with two
questions: what’s so special about studying across the pond, and if the US really is a better place to study, how do you get in on the action?
There are three big advantages to studying in the United States. The first is money. Vast sums are invested in research and development on American campuses, which are already much better endowed than their British counterparts. This doesn’t just mean more free drinks events; it also means having the resources to carry out expensive top-level research that leads to breakthroughs and publications, be it in healthcare or rocket science.
The second advantage is choice. There are 1,700 institutions in the United States offering postgraduate qualifications – that’s 10 times the number available in the UK. These opportunities aren’t just offered at the famous private American universities such as Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but also at the country’s great state universities like the University of California, Maryland and Michigan (the three most common US state university destinations for UK postgraduates last year). Others – such as the University of Oregon – specialise in becoming world leaders in particular fields of expertise.
The third benefit of a stint in the States is the chance to stand out in the jobs market. Margaret Bray, a member of the economics department at the London School of Economics, who works on PhD admissions, has had jobs in both the US and the UK. “When graduates come to me for advice, I tell them to consider the States very seriously,” she says, “It depends what you’re studying, of course, but in general it’s better not to do your postgraduate degree in the same place as your undergraduate one. It’s good to get exposed to new people and to new ideas.”
According to Bray, US universities are more likely to offer better quality careers services. “American universities see helping PhD students into employment as a big part of their role,” she says. “Lots of letters and references are written, and they have faculty members and websites dedicated to supporting people into the academic jobs market. The LSE offers all of that, but in general this help is less formalised than it is in the US.”
