While studying abroad has been a hype up trend for such a long time, studying locally will give you the advantages on the financial, the culture and the distance. On the financial aspect, studying locally helps you save a substantial amount of money. This is due to the living cost, tuition fees and the transportation cost can be significantly lower. It is cheaper because we use our own money currency instead of using dollars.
Moreover, the distance between you and your family are near. Hence, you do not have to book a 14 hours flight ticket that will not only be tiresome but also costly. You can go home for events or celebrations anytime you want. Last but not least, by studying locally you are already familiar with the culture as it is your country. Thus, culture shock will never happened to you. For instance, hedonistic lifestyle applied to those who study abroad but not people that choose to study locally. You also will never have to trouble yourself immersing in a new language. Thus, language barrier will not happened.
Like studying locally, studying abroad also offer fruitful things to those who make studying abroad their option such as acquiring knowledge of new cultures and perspectives, gaining self-development and financial aspect. By studying abroad, one can acquire knowledge of new cultures and perspectives from the society, traditions and languages. This is due to its culture are different from local that we have seen. You will see various beliefs, behaviours and races. Thus, it will open your eyes to new things and hone your languages skills that can benefit you in the upcoming. Hence, you will see other things in different point of view.
Besides, by studying abroad you can gain self-development namely soft skills, survival mode and maturity. A survey has conducted where 818 students from the University of Melbourne who went on an overseas exchange between 1990 and 2000 has answered questionnaires on studying abroad and 90% of the respondents agreed that their overseas study experience allowed them to better value perspectives other than their own and to better understand their own cultural values and biases, enhanced their understanding of themselves, increased their maturity, independence and self-confidence, and influenced their perspective on the world, while 73% felt that they were better enabled to tolerate ambiguity.
According to the literature these are all components that are important to being intercultural competent. This is because you have to stand on your own feet and live independently. This resulted to becoming more mature and self-confident because you have to put yourself in challenging situations. On the financial aspect, studying abroad tend to be a bit costly as the living cost, tuition fees and the transportation costs are higher than studying locally. This is due to the difference of money currency between foreign country and local. The foreign country money is a strong currency for us.
Despite their different locations of options, both studying locally and studying abroad have their similarities which is getting needed degree, almost same courses offered and provided qualified lecturers. Students mainly choose to further their studies to get a degree be it abroad or locally. Hence the other factors that contribute to the option are second things that they see. The sole purpose is to graduate with a degree.
Whether studying locally or studying abroad offered almost the same courses. Courses that are available abroad also available locally. For instance, medicine, law, engineering and even language studies. It won’t make any less opportunity as the qualification when applying job is not determined on where you graduate. This has been proven from a survey conducted by the Straits Times, three in four of the 214 companies said they have no preferences when it comes to employing local or overseas graduates. The rest would rather opt for someone who studied locally. It clearly show the value of the certificates are just the same. Besides, both studying locally and studying abroad provided qualified lecturers. The lecturers from both options are as good as the rest. It is due to the range of degrees are similar to those you would expect to find at leading campuses, meaning you won’t miss out on the standards of teaching.
In conclusion, while both studying places provide a great education, each system approaches education slightly differently and there are advantages and disadvantages to each.