Which Country Should I Study In?

Your future career prospects and your opportunities for upward social mobility will often be the most important considerations when it comes to selecting a university, and, in doing so, you should consider the following factors:

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• Reputation: Employers, irrespective of where in the world they are located, use the reputation of the university attended as a rough proxy for the competence and capabilities of the attendee – employers are aware that high-ranking universities have stringent entry criteria. But reputation is measured in different ways: within China, Chinese universities are assessed principally on the gāokǎo score needed to attain entry; but for a university that is not located within China, its reputation – recorded in global and national league tables – is determined by the quality of its courses and by the innovative nature of its research.

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• Degree classification: The presumed capabilities of a university graduate who has attended a university outside of China are based not only on the reputation of the university attended but also on the degree classification attained: employers are not interested in how well a student did on the university entrance examination; they are interested in how well the student did on the course taken at university. The demands of university are very different from those of high school, and a student who does well on an entrance examination – which typically focuses on memorization and rote learning – does not always do so well on a university course – which typically focuses on the ability to think critically and to innovate. However, a lower classification, such as a 2:2, obtained at a prestigious institution may be more highly regarded than a higher classification, such as a 1st, awarded by a low-ranking university.

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• Course quality: It’s possible for a university with a strong global reputation to be comparatively weak when it comes to teaching: its faculty members may be spending most of their time producing the high-quality research papers that sustain the university’s reputation, and, as a consequence, they may be spending very little time in assisting students by way of well-taught lectures, by way of the close supervision of lab work, by way of their frequent attendance at seminars to provide feedback, clarifications, and encouragement. Knowledgeable employers recruiting in a particular field may well rate universities according to the quality of their teaching in a particular subject area. Course quality is less relevant in abstract subjects, such as philosophy and pure mathematics; but in applied subjects, such as medicine and computer science, course quality is particularly important, as the skills gained can be utilized immediately by an employer.

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• Influential contacts: The contacts made by a student – contacts made among both students and faculty – may well lead to personal and business opportunities in the future. However, for the contacts to be useful, the individuals must be, or must become, influential within their respective disciplines. Gaining influential contacts among faculty members is more likely when students take postgraduate courses. There is a strong positive correlation between how useful contacts are likely to be and the global reputation of the university attended.

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• English language skills: Gaining good English language skills is a valuable asset for progression in many careers – given the volume of English language documentation that many organizations need to process, given the need for employees to exchange emails and video conference calls with those overseas trading partners for whom English is either their native language or their language of commerce (about 85% of employers rate good communication skills as important).

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• Cultural exposure: Employers understand that employees who gain some exposure to, and some understanding of, the culture of an overseas country can facilitate trade with that country by improving the targeting of marketing, by expediting the negotiation of contracts, by helping to avoid and resolve disputes (about 65% of international employers rate overseas professional work experience as important).

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• Adaptability and self-reliance: The nature of work is changing, changing rapidly. In the past, you would have been taught a set of skills early on in your career, and you would have applied those skills thereafter. But with the relentless rise in artificial intelligence, many traditional jobs will disappear: in particular, those jobs that lie in the middle of the skill range will disappear, leaving behind only high-paid jobs that are very demanding and low-paid jobs that are menial in nature. The characteristic of the high-paid jobs will be that the skills required will be continually changing – you will need to be highly adaptable – and you will be expected to master these new skills all by yourself – you will need to be self-reliant. Increasingly, employers will be less interested in what you know than in evidence that you are a highly adaptable, self-reliant, self-motivated individual: one who can be given an objective, who can determine how best to achieve the objective, who can marshal the requisite resources, and who can realize the objective – all within a specified deadline. As you build up your career profile and enhance your CV, it’s important that you accumulate evidence that these highly desirable characteristics are also your characteristics.

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