In a Dear Green Place

Should I feel guilty for not writing for awhile? It’s odd how once you start one of these blog things you feel a certain compulsion to write. On the very off chance someone was looking forward to an entry over the last few weeks, I apologize. Well, there hasn’t been a lot going on in the last few weeks. (Great, now I’m starting to justify myself to non-existent readers). Just working rather boring temp jobs. And I’m sure you’d rather not have details of my various adventures as a temp receptionist or accountant. Not exciting stuff.

But I haven’t written just to say I have nothing to write. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten a lot of questions about studying abroad and why I chose to do my postgrad work in the UK. So if that kind of thing sounds interesting to you, read on. If not, I leave on September 7th and maybe there’ll be more exciting stuff after that (although that’s a big maybe).

Okay, grad study abroad. I’m studying at the University of Glasgow to get a Masters degree over the next 12 months. (It’s not called a Masters of Arts because the undergraduate degree is called a Masters as well.) One of the main reasons I chose to go to Glasgow is that I could get a Masters of Theology in 12 months instead of two years like here in the States. Over the next 9 months I’ll be taking 3 graduate seminars. My only grades will come from the papers for each of these classes. If the scores on those essays are high enough I’ll be able to start my Masters dissertation in June and I’ll have until next September to finish it.

Some people have asked if a Masters degree from the UK is equivalent to a Masters degree from a US school. Well, from what I’ve found that really depends on the employer. For many jobs it is treated as equivalent. For some jobs, especially ones that have very specific requirements or board examinations like medicine, you would have to go to a company that does degree equivalency reports. I want to be a Community College professor so I’ve asked various HR departments at Community Colleges what they would require as far as paperwork and I’ve gotten a mixture of responses. It really depends on the school.

As far as costs go that is a hard part of getting a degree in the UK. Students in the UK don’t pay nearly as much for graduate school as we do here. But as an international student you will pay 4 to 5 times as much. It’s like a larger version of out of state tuition. There aren’t nearly as many resources for financial aid although US federal student loans can be applied to degrees abroad. The FAFSA process is the same. Plus, we mustn’t forget the exchange rate. It means that cost of living is pretty steep for those starting with US dollars. Still, I’ll be done in one year instead of two so it’s a pretty good deal. Plus, I get to go to school in Glasgow. Totally worth it.

I decided to go through Arcadia University’s Education Abroad office for the application process. You can certainly go directly through the application process at the University itself. I chose to use Arcadia’s office because I’d gone through them before for study abroad as an undergrad and had a good experience but mostly because I’m lazy and they would take care of a lot of the paperwork for me, both for the University of Glasgow and for insurance stuff. Plus I got a handy dandy official letter from Arcadia that says all my costs will be covered. This made the visa process easier because I didn’t need as much paperwork to show that I could afford school. By having Arcadia guarantee my finances it cut through a lot of steps. At the time I was in the midst of all my grad applications and all the essays so paying a little more for Arcadia’s office to take of all the papers was a real load off.

I certainly don’t know everything about the whole study abroad thing. That’s what study abroad councilors are for. But if you ever have any questions, throw ‘em my way. Who knows, maybe I’ll know something useful.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 9:13 am and is filed under Preparations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.