Feature

Studying Abroad- Realities and Rationales

Manar Din Samad

I believe many prospective graduate students from our country are planning and preparing for higher studies abroad this season. The students in Dhaka are much luckier compared to those from suburban universities. Suburb graduates are hardly seen to aspire for North America, many do not even have the knowledge about GRE and GMAT tests. I have seen the Indian youths showing passionate craze for the USA and unlike Bangladesh thousands of coaching centres have sprouted in India to support their graduate admission in the United States. Starting from university selection, quick GRE preparation, and sending application packages to the universities, they take care of all aiming to export more students to the potential fields of study. They offer students their expertise and hand in tricks for better test score, helping in selecting the best probable schools for their fund or admission and all guideline needed to make admission process easier, economic and hassle free. Students have to provide only the reference letters and transcripts to them.

We do not have such an environment probably because, not many students are motivated in that way. Selecting the sure shot universities for admission and fund based on individual's credentials is a challenging task indeed. The kind of research you are interested in may not be the project they need to fund. Sometimes, they need to fund for a project, which is too advanced for a student in Bangladesh since most of us were not exposed to such laboratory facilities. Approaching the professors over mail or phone and writing up the SOP (Statement of Purpose) need another set of realization. Probably till today, we do not have any organized help and support centre or seminar regarding these issues.

As an example beyond Dhaka, Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensingh has a very high prospect to export students to North America because of their less competitive and unique field of studies. However, many of them lack the motivation and pathway to apply. For each university application it requires total eight to ten thousands taka. Sometimes it becomes harder to confirm fund or admission from professors before applying in general. Such general case may warrant you a teaching assistantship (TA) offer from the department or fellowship in the best case. Professor's fund for research can be assured either by personal contact or a fortunate pick up of your application papers during admission process. There are quite a good number of American universities where tuition fee and even no application fee is required. Among 3500 American universities opportunity for graduate studies is massive once you can click at the right place, right time. Some students seem to be frustrated about GRE scores and appearing three times for better scoring. For the engineers (Q-800, V-400+) 1200+ is enough to catch the mediocre universities. For getting Teaching Assistantship your TOEFL score carries a lot weight than GRE. Better to apply to those universities where your previous alumni made a good feat. Our doctors are rather interested in practicing than doing research in medical science. They do have huge funded research opportunities in American health and biological and biomedical science departments. Please make the best use of Internet to look for the huge untapped resources. A professor is looking for a graduate like you somewhere out there as you are looking for a professor's supervision and fund, who knows where? Show some side projects, presentation, and organization that you were involved in even at the national level.

Even projects through industrial affiliation would favour you a lot than who does not have it at all. Do not resort to any lies and let them know what the merits you have even in managing non technical issues. Communication and management skills are as important to them as the technical aptitudes you learn from your school.

Research is getting and demanding more interdisciplinary now. Robotics engineers are working with neurosurgeons for developing failsafe robot assisted surgical stations. Department of Civil engineering is requiring Urban and Regional Planning graduates. Your field may not be fundamental or may not have any connection to your undergraduate studies. They require your analytical hard skill and innovation through motivation as the soft skill. I suggest taking the GRE exam, which is better for us than to take the trouble of learning German, French, Korean and Japanese language. And for PhD, funds are always lot more than masters. For a well motivated and confident student, it is a better option to apply directly in the PhD program after pursuing a bachelor degree. This is more common in the US and very unlikely in Canada and Europe where you need to show your PhD eligibility through a master's degree. Surprisingly enough, the academics process in the US and Canada are remarkably different with their own pros and cons. Canada with very few competitive universities still has the vacancies in funding Masters program, which is quite less likely the case in the US. The US more prefers to fund the PhD program only where they expect to do intensive research.

Many are seen to take this graduate application as a detour towards making a wealthy and prosperous settlement in the first world countries. Please have such aspiration once you have proved yourself worthy to them through your degrees and skill. Lets not stray away from the preliminary goal and motivation that we will be there to make ourselves learned through degrees. The stories of graduate school drop offs and doing odd jobs are not good things to hear about our students. If you are not truly financially solvent and motivated, it is never wise to gamble with life making false statement and fantasize of a colourful life of staying abroad.

Oxford Int'l School achieves 75 Cambridge Outstanding Achiever Awards

G. M. Nizam Uddin

EVER since its venture into the CIE world in 2003 Oxford International School (OIS) has always striven for excellence and its 74 outstanding Achievement Awards from the [May/June-2009 and October/November-2008 (AS Level)] speaks volumes about the diligence of the students, dedication of the teachers and determination of the management of the school. Among the 74 awards, 18 of them have carved a niche as top in Bangladesh and 4 of them as top in the World. Out of the 6 who have secured High Achievement Records, one is top in Bangladesh in all 6 subjects in O Levels while another being top in all 3 AS level examinations. In addition, others achieved 6 (A Grades) in O Levels and above 2 (A Grades) in AS and A Level.

The University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) is the world's largest provider of international qualifications for 14-19 year old students and is currently operating in 157 countries around the world, across Europe, South Asia, The Middle East, Asia Pacific, North America, Central and South America and Africa. The students of Oxford International School in Bangladesh have competed almost globally and achieved this brilliant result is indeed a matter of great pride for everyone associated with the school.

This success has not been an easy feat for anyone of us here at OIS, but it was made possible by the hard work of the students, serious effort of the teachers, and co-operation of the parents. Indeed it's hard not to miss the amount of study and improvisation that has been put into this. Extra importance is given to the students of O and A Levels in any school and OIS is no exception to the rule, but we have garnered such brilliant results only because we have worked at it from the ground level. OIS has (as advocated by the CIE) introduced CIPP (Cambridge International Primary Program) for children from Kg-2 to class 5 and CLSP (Cambridge International Lower Secondary Program) for students from class 6 to 7, so that by the time the students enter the O Levels they are well versed with the system.