This material was provided to us by a regular reader Marat Afzalov, the head of the educational website OnCampus.ru .
For some, postgraduate study abroad is an opportunity to fully engage in science, for others it is a career step, for others it is a path of emigration. Whatever the motives, there are a number of factors that are recommended to be taken into account when choosing a foreign postgraduate course. Let's consider at first glance not the most obvious of them, but which can significantly affect your experience of studying at a foreign university.
The specialization of the program is not always obvious. For example, the candidate has received a basic higher education in psychology, but plans to enroll in an American master's degree in experimental psychology. There are hundreds of programs in the field of experimental psychology in the USA, and although even their names may be the same, they often have a certain, even narrower specialization. If this information is not specified anywhere, specialization can be defined as follows: study the research interests of the teaching staff on the faculty's website; find out which laboratories have access to the department; study the curriculum. At the very least, the above will give an idea of what can be expected from the training program.
Some PhD programs focus on theory and basic research methods, while others focus on applied aspects and the application of research results in practice. It is necessary to take this difference into account when submitting documents. If you indicate in the application documents for a theoretical program that you are most interested in applied research, most likely you will receive a refusal. In relation to the Master's degree, the choice may be before the usual program Taught Master's or Master's by Reasearch. The second option is more suitable for those who plan to continue their studies in doctoral studies.
The PhD program can be structured and not structured. In the first case, students are first “coached” on research methods and theory, and closer to the end of their studies they start working on a dissertation. Structured PhD programs are more typical for American and Canadian universities. Classical unstructured doctoral programs are more common in Europe. Here, a doctoral student is assigned to a certain professor from the very beginning and works on his research topic alone or as part of a group of researchers.
Postgraduate programs involve writing a qualifying work — master's or doctoral dissertation. It makes sense to clarify the requirements for dissertations on the program of interest: should the dissertation be based on empirical data or should it be more theoretical with a multi-page literature review. The choice will depend on what is closer to your academic interests.
In addition to the above, it is recommended to study such obvious points as the sources and possibility of obtaining funding, the rating of the program, the conditions for doing research, the location of the university.
Note: in relation to foreign postgraduate programs, such as master's and doctoral studies (PhD), the understandable term “postgraduate study” is used, instead of the foreign term “graduate school".
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