Four years ago, I wrote “Travel and Masters Degrees: Part 1“. It’s an amusing entry about attempting at doing a Masters while pitched in a tent in countryside Ireland or moving to chic Primrose Hill in London.
In 2014 I was back on the Masters track. My motivation and agenda has changed after my first attempt and is a future post for this blog.
I ended that 2014 entry with a note asking what the purpose is for pursuing a Masters anyway and especially in relation to my goals here. Looking back, I don’t regret pursuing this track and it ended up working well with other personal and higher-level goals anyway.
How can you mix a Masters and travel though?
You may have come across those who have been able to be on track with a university in their target country. My situation was different in that my university was in my home country.
By early 2015, I was considering making the move to Sweden (I’ve heard good things about their startup ecosystem there), Singapore (for finance and tech), US/Canada (I’ve consolidated these two countries under the “North America” term), or elsewhere in Australia. Making a life-changing decision that could take place in another country is hard enough, let alone across four.
One of the perks of being a student is access to student scholarships and other student-only offers at conferences. I applied and was able to obtain a conference scholarship in Singapore and another in the US.
Masters and international experience does not have to mean going all the way to obtaining the degree in a foreign country.
I think that people may have a notion Masters + Travel = gaining access to a foreign university. This is one pathway, but it’s not the only one.