Get an MEng or BEng, or study abroard?

[tom66]

I'm in my second year at college and I plan to study electronics engineering - something that has always fascinated me. I consider myself reasonably skilled, but an education would bring new, foreign concepts to me which would help me further.

I have several options. I could study over here (in the UK) and get an MEng or BEng in Electronics Engineering. The entry requirements here are pretty strict, but I think I can meet them. I was thinking of Reading or Southampton University, but I would be prepared to travel further. In this country I would be around £20,000 - £25,000 in student debt after this, which is a lot of money.

Another option is to study abroard, in the USA, as a foreign student. The idea comes to me because higher education in the US is some of the best. The tuition for a good university is around $60,000, but there's a federal grant for US citizens and international students available which halves this, and $30,000 is only ~£18k at the moment. Not only would I be getting a better education, I would be getting it at a lower price. Also, in the USA job prospects are better. The UK government does not seem to be encouraging engineering one bit. I'd prefer to work in a small start-up with less than 100 employees; working in a big company such as Sony, Microsoft or BAE isn't something I'd like to do - I've heard the horror stories of 99% burecracy and 1% electronics.

Obviously for both I will be needing to take out student loans so I need to check how these are done in the USA.

What do others think?

[tom66]

Thanks. I tried to learn a foreign language - German - in school. I was unfortunately completely unable to learn it. I think I am more geared for programming languages.

[armandas]

Another option is to study abroard, in the USA, as a foreign student. The idea comes to me because higher education in the US is some of the best. The tuition for a good university is around $60,000, but there's a federal grant for US citizens and international students available which halves this, and $30,000 is only ~£18k at the moment. Not only would I be getting a better education, I would be getting it at a lower price.

That all sounds nice, but you have to consider other things as well. Let's say that you will get that federal grant, in that case you will still have to pay $30,000. Where will that come from? If you're thinking about getting a loan in the US, you should do some research and find out about the conditions, repayment, interest and other scary things.

In the UK, student loans have very good conditions. You only start repaying after you get a job and earn a certain amount, while the interest rate is effectively zero. Although these conditions might change before you start your studies.

Anyway, if you can afford studying abroad, definitely go for it.

[tom66]

That all sounds nice, but you have to consider other things as well. Let's say that you will get that federal grant, in that case you will still have to pay $30,000. Where will that come from? If you're thinking about getting a loan in the US, you should do some research and find out about the conditions, repayment, interest and other scary things.

In the UK, student loans have very good conditions. You only start repaying after you get a job and earn a certain amount, while the interest rate is effectively zero. Although these conditions might change before you start your studies.

Anyway, if you can afford studying abroad, definitely go for it.

That's my only major worry - where to find the funding. If such loans exist in the US, it would be fantastic. I may plan on staying there long-term, so I don't want to be stuck with a large amount of debt. I hate debt...

[gregariz]

The idea comes to me because higher education in the US is some of the best. The tuition for a good university is around $60,000, but there's a federal grant for US citizens and international students available which halves this, and $30,000 is only ~£18k at the moment. Not only would I be getting a better education, I would be getting it at a lower price. Also, in the USA job prospects are better. The UK government does not seem to be encouraging engineering one bit. I'd prefer to work in a small start-up with less than 100 employees; working in a big company such as Sony, Microsoft or BAE isn't something I'd like to do - I've heard the horror stories of 99% burecracy and 1% electronics.

Obviously for both I will be needing to take out student loans so I need to check how these are done in the USA.

What do others think?

I'm not sure that you would get a better education in the US. Thats just my opinion but its a bit like religion. The problem as I see it is that most of the US programs have generalized so there are no longer any 'electronics engineering' programs left. You would study electrical engineering (a BSEE) and then in the final year or two you could possibly pick some specialist subjects. In the US, IMO, specialization happens at the graduate level so for 'design' engineering jobs an MSEE is more or less a requirement.

You would have an extreme advantage in the UK of being able to get an undergraduate Master's in 4 years. If you are planning to get to the MSEE in the US that would occur only after the BSEE so you would be looking at 6 years in total. My impression as someone who works in the US is that a US education is not regarded as superior to a UK education so I think you would be as well served to stay home and same some money. I think a good tip is simply to look at the course content and compare.

My only reservation to the UK would be that if you are planning on going to say Stanford (or MIT or maybe Caltech or UC Berkeley) you would possibly have a job offer at graduation. Thats not true of most other colleges. The advantage of them except for MIT is that they are all in California close to Silicon valley where most of the work is. If you are planning on getting a job in california after graduation then I have no easy advice other than to say I would be trying to get summer work or something like that in the Valley (but you could do that from the UK). That may get your foot in the door, otherwise you'll have to simply buy a plane ticket and show up and be prepared to rough it until you get something.

You mentioned you'd prefer a smaller company. Thats a good idea - that would be my advice to most engineers. Also the MSEE may no longer be as necessary as with the larger multinationals, so a BEng would be fine. I think the larger ones can be good for a short stint however just you get you up to speed with the lingo and common business practices. Its kind of like a flu shot - once you've worked in the larger ones for a bit, no level of insanity appears unusual anymore. However since you've mentioned that I will mention that the Valley has become a very expensive place to live (houses are small and old) in the last decade and as a result alot of smaller (and some larger) businesses moved out of the valley area in to LA, San diego and the surrounding states like Utah, Nevada and Arizona where things were much cheaper (houses are big, cheap and new).

Just a few tips.. take what you will

[tom66]

I hear you... I'm still not fully decided. I think US education is seen as more prestigeous and as mentioned before, it would look good on a CV, showing that I went out of my way to learn.

Places I could go are fairly numerous; the problem is how to choose. In the UK, you apply for two offers: a Firm Offer and an Insurance Offer. If the Firm Offer falls through (too many applicants, too late, grades not good enough, etc.) you have the Insurance Offer to fall back on. That's as far as I understand it. There are no application fees up-front. The price is around £9,000/year for a good university, and for a four year M.Eng course, I'd be at least £36k in debt just in tuition - before considering living expenses (food, electricity, driving/transport...) of at least £4,000/year, if not more. Although most of this is paid by student loans, you still have to pay these back, although the interest rate is very low (maybe even 0%?) and you only pay them back when earning >£25,000/year at 9% of your income... which is still a lot... because you'd already be looking at 20% income tax... so almost ~30% tax. Which is a lot.

In the US, as far as I understand it, competition is fierce but international students are regarded on the same ground as domestic students. My favourite is MIT, whose sticker price is ~$55,000/year, but Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford, and Caltech are under consideration, and the price is about the same, around $60k/year. Way more than the UK, but as my family earns less than $120k/year (might even be less than $75k/year) I'd have to pay only about $4,400 of this a year - the rest is covered by scholarships and grants. The problem with this is that $4,400 is only tuition (excl. living expenses) and is still a lot of money, so I'd need part-time work to cover it. Then living expenses come into the equation. As far as I know student loans can be funded by government or by private banks, but there's the risk you can't pay it back: in the UK, it would be written off by the government if you can prove you are unable to pay after 15(?) years, whereas in the US you could have debt collection agencies on your tail. And with US universities there's no "UCAS" system, which means you have to apply individually to universities, and they each want $70 to $200 application fees. At least MIT lets you apply to waive this fee. It's a lot of money to apply for something that might fall through.

Another thing is that credit cards seem to be a big part of the student lifestyle. I have seen what excess credit has done to my family (both mum + partner in debt a lot... double figure thousands), so if I can, I would like to avoid them: it's too easy to spend beyond your means. But it might not be an option.

Then of course to live in the US, you need your plane ticket there, and I'd like to take my stuff if I can (oscilloscope, test equipment etc.) Some of it is 230V only. Shipping could be expensive. I'm only 17 and will be 18 or 19 going to university, so it would be a big change, and may take some getting used to.

Oh and there are student visas, insurance etc. which all needs to be sorted out.

Does anyone have any experience about this? Any suggestions?