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A few people have asked me how one gets started to get from zero to grad school elsewhere. This will assume that you have figured out some kind of financing (student loans, lends from family or friends, line of credit, savings, etc etc). Read the previous post on Grad School Part I for suggestions on that aspect).

Summary:

1) Figure out what you want to study (the ‘what’)

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Mull over what you’re interested in studying. Keep in mind that you’ll be writing a huge thesis and spend a year or two devoted to it, so pick something that you’re genuinely interested in. Ignore that ‘what job can I get?’ voice, because often, it’s the letters by your name that matter unless you have a specific field in mind. (If you want to be a physicist or a doctor, then a degree in history won’t help you. But if you want to be a journalist/work in the civil service/work for a university/etc etc, the degree is more important than what it’s in. It’s demonstratable proof that you’re to follow through, complete tasks, and write well. And it says that you’re smart). You always do better when you’re working on something you’re passionate about. And this is your chance to totally submerge your brain into a subject. Make it one that you like.

2) Think about where you’ve always wanted to go (the ‘where’)

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Once you have an idea roughly of what subject you’re interested in, start thinking about where you want to spend that year (or two). I’m a huge fan of Europe, but maybe you’ve dreamt about ziplining through Costa Rica and using Spanish in your everyday life. This could be your moment. Try to combine what you want to study with an area of the world that you actually want to live in. The world is a big place, so don’t limit your options.

So you’ve considered some ideas of where, and you have a bit of a grasp on ‘what’. What’s the next step, you ask?

If you know what country you’re interested in, do a search for universities in that country and start searching through individual sites. If you want a wider range of options, try using a master’s degree search site, such as:

http://www.masterstudies.com/

It lets you search by type of degree and subject, and then gives you worldwide options. It’s very cool.

3) Narrow down to three or four schools

Here’s the hard part. Narrow down your options to a few schools. Some will have application fees, so it’s partly financial, but also practical. If you have far too many options, you’ll get overwhelmed by choice and often that freezes you into inaction. Choose three or four that make you want to leap up and start right now.

4) Spend some time on their international student section.

Think about your situation: are you taking your spouse and/or children? What kind of amenities are there? What’s the daycare situation? Each international department will have an email contact – email them and ask some of these questions. Look into their dorm or residence situation, and then do a search for apartment or flat rentals in that city and compare prices. Consider whether or not you’d prefer to live on campus (convenient, easy to make friends and lots of amenities, but probably smaller and you may have to share), or off (bigger range of options, probably nicer, and more of a ‘resident’ versus ‘student’ experience).

Check what the visa requirements are for the countries you’re interested in. Look at the international embassy in your home country

http://www.embassyworld.com/Embassy_Search_Engine

5) Start applying!

Once you’ve made the decision to apply, you’ll need to check your deadlines and decide what year or semester you want to apply, and dragoon some references. While some of you will be coming straight from an undergrad degree and will easily have academic references, those of you who have been in the workforce won’t have that. As I was the latter, I sent in three professional references. Explain your situation to the advisor (who you  will have hopefully emailed by now) and see what they suggest. You’ll also need to send in some academic writing samples – dredge something up from the undergrad days if you can, or write something new. Make sure to proof it well and that you’re genuinely proud of it before you send it in.

6) Wait!

Depending on when the deadlines are and the school itself, getting an answer make take a week or may take six months. I knew within two weeks, but it may take awhile. If you haven’t heard in a few months, email and ask where it’s at.

7) Acceptance! Hooray!

If you’ve gotten into more than one school, you need to sit down, make a pros and cons list, and really think about what you want.

Once you’ve been accepted and have a date for the start, you’ll need to look into applying for your visa if you haven’t already. Go to the country’s embassy website and start the procedure…keep in mind it may take awhile, so check your time limits and give yourself plenty of time.

8) Get ready to go.

Get letters from your bank and collect six months of statements, as this may assist you in setting up a new bank account in the new country. Sort out storage for your possessions, set up a free web-based email address (Hotmail, Gmail, etc), buy your plane ticket. Work out your accommodations for the first month or two in the new city (or get residence confirmation if you’re staying on campus).

9) Start learning!

Good luck! Have a fantastic time and enjoy the process.

Every now and then I wonder what would have happened had I pursued my original career plan. The year was 1989, shoulder pads were huge (double pun!), and many of my Saturday nights were spent having sleepovers with my best friend Lins and watching pro wrestling, also known as WWF (now WWE) until the wee hours. My career plan was (drumroll..) to be a pro wrestling manager. For those of you who have seen WWF, my role model was Miss Elizabeth, who at the time was the manager for Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage. Perhaps it was the glory, slightly odd fame and presumable fortune. It may have been the drama and endless story arcs, some of which didn’t even make sense at the time and even with the context. But for whatever reason, that’s what I wanted to do. Then life went on, elementary school finished, high school came and went, and being a pro wrestling manager dropped off the radar.

Other dreams and ideas came and took the place of my Miss Elizabeth master plan. In the back of my mind, I always wondered what would happen if I took one of those whims and followed it. And then, at 29, I did. The culmination of a long story that I won’t go into is that I found myself in Singapore, floating in a swimming pool at 3am surrounded by peacocks, having fled my hotel room for cooler air in the hopes of tamping down my migraine. In the still (minus the peacock squawking, that is) and the serenity, I realized that I couldn’t just be someone’s girlfriend. And I decided that for my own self respect and future, I needed to complete a goal for me. Which led me down a list of goals I had made over the years.

Did I still want to be a pro wrestling manager? Not really. Too odd. And too much instability. And far too many teenage boys (which in the late twenties is vastly unappealing, as opposed to the allure it holds in the early teens). But I had always wanted to get a Master’s degree. In something random, that I wanted to learn about, regardless of whether or not it actually served any viable purpose. I had some unfinished business in the UK, and their MAs can be done in a year, rather than two as it is here, which meant I could take an educational leave from work. I arrived home on a Monday, by Tuesday had chosen my top three schools, by Wednesday had applied, by Friday had badgered three of my work references into writing letters for me. Two and a half months later, I found myself on a plane to Manchester, enroute to the University of Liverpool, where I began the first semester of my Master’s degree in Science Fiction.

Somehow, in the midst of this, I started dating my husband long distance – we knew each other from the university we worked at and started talking just as I left. Our first date was him flying to the UK to meet me for reading week. We managed long distance for nine months, with numerous trips back and forthing, and then spent six weeks schlepping through Eastern Europe as ‘research’ for my thesis. A large section of my dissertation was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, thus making Transylvania a very loose definition of ‘practical’.

The story ends somewhat prosaically – by 30 I finished my thesis, we got engaged, married, and five years later, are happy and all is well. Was it practical to run off to Europe and study sci fi? No…but it was the right thing to do, and all of my instincts screamed ‘do it!’. And this time, I listened to that whim. And little me, the one who had plans to manage 300 pound steroided superstars, is proud.

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** Note that this post only refers to MA or MSc. A PhD has a whole other set of options and alternatives that aren’t covered here.

I had always wanted to get a Master’s degree. Part of this was the urge to have more letters after my name a higher quest for learning, some if it was the vague notion that it might help me get a better job (as I was working for a university at the time, this was legitimate), and there was a part of me that was slightly insane genuinely missed being out of school – it had been five years since my undergrad finished.

Getting my MA in Canada, though, appealed less. I wanted to see somewhere new, and that would be a great way to immerse myself while having a purpose. And we know I *do* love to multitask! I had moved to England permanently and then had to move back home abruptly after a family crisis. It felt as if my time there hadn’t really finished…and so after an overnight decision at the end of May while on vacation in Singapore, it was time to make the move. I arrived home on a Monday. By Tuesday, I’d chosen my top three schools. By Wednesday, I’d applied. By Friday, I’d browbeat my references into sending their letters off, and two weeks later, I’d been accepted into my choice of schools.

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Decision time. Children’s literature at Reading or Roehampton, or….science fiction in Liverpool! Easier decision than I thought. Hanging out in the home of the Beatles, reading books about robots and time travel? SOLD!

Photo credit to C Steinmetz

Here were the pros of going to school outside of Canada:

*MAs in the UK take one year, versus two in Canada. If you’re able to get a leave from work (as I did), then you’re working the second year rather than still in school, so it kind of mitigates the higher tuition cost

*it combined the adventure of travel with the schedule of school. There were enough breaks and holidays (and weekends!) to do a great deal of wandering around and see some spectacular things that we don’t have at home.

Exhibit A:

Photo credit to S Gudlaugson

*classmates who have a completely different culture and view of the world. My program was tiny (there were *three* of us), but we spanned three countries, and Christian came all the way from Luxembourg. My roommates in my dorm were from everywhere, studying a bewildering variety of things. New perspectives, new ideas, new everything. It was fantastic. And I have friends all over the world, for life.

*the opportunity to reinvent yourself.

It’s wonderfully freeing when no one has any preconceived notions of what you’re good at, whether you’ll like something or what your opinion on a topic will be. You can be whoever you choose to be, with no backstory or explanation required. You learn a lot about yourself when you’re starting from scratch again.

The only major con is $$$$$. Big $$$$$. When I went, the pound was 2.4 to the dollar. Multiply that by 9000 pounds, and it’s a staggeringly huge number.

While there’s the obvious solution of student loans or savings, there are plenty of other ways to defray the cost. Most of these will only apply to Canadians, but there will be various other country’s alternatives that are similar.

*Most student visas come with the option to work part time. Take it. If you work for somewhere international, like Starbucks or Flight Centre, for example, see if you can transfer or at least make a connection at a local branch where you’re going. If not, sign up with the employment centre. Do some of the paid research studies in various departments.

*local scholarships and bursaries! Scholarships are generally based on academic merit. Bursaries are geared towards financial need and both have their place. Look at every possible option. Are you (or your parents or aunts or grandparents) a union or association member? They may have a scholarship – go and find out. Does your field of study offer incentives to minorities, and does that apply to you? Do you do volunteer work? Your organization might offer something. Check your worksite and your parents’ worksites.

*government learning grants and scholarships. Start here and choose the country you’re interested in. For the UK, there are a number of programs that are funded by both the Canadian and the British governments, such as the Commonwealth Scholarship or the Killam Prize.

*consider countries where the Canadian currency is high and your dollar will go further. Think Latin America or Eastern Europe, Africa or India. The world is a big place – go and explore it!

*Check into what graduate school costs are, and if there are any. Universities in Finland, Austria, and Norway offer free or low cost tuition to international students. There are others, but those jump to mind.

Don’t be that person who muses ‘I wish that I had…’ Go ahead and do it. People rarely regret what they actually did, but spend endless time regretting what they didn’t do.

Part II (to be written sometime soon! Promise!) will cover the nuts and bolts of how to go from zero to heading off to the airport. Stay tuned, campers!

Have you ever had a day where when you return home in the afternoon, it actually feels like you’ve been on another planet and you come back with a whole new point of view? That was my experience with my first blog conference.

I dropped The Bun off at daycare, where she toddled off to play with her favourite Sesame Street bus, and drove to Skytrain and found free parking. (This in and of itself is a gift…we used to live in the area, so I know where each of the few spots are and have an ability to hone in on them. It’s not exactly a superpower but it does come in handy!). Freed from parental and work duties, I zipped downtown and walked to the Vancity Theatre.

It was a bit like being at a cocktail party with a bunch of people that you knew could quickly become friends. Like Christmas, but with people! Who should I meet first? I wonder which blogger that is?

I was torn between meeting everyone at once or wandering off to the impressive breakfast spread at the other end of the room. Croissants! Bloggers! Fruit kabobs! Bloggers! Thus, the conundrum. I ended up getting a plate and then wandering around, inadvertantly gesturing with a fruit kabob as I talked. (No one lost an eye, thus it is still considered fun and games).

So many people whose blogs I’d seen…Dividend Ninja, whose financial DRIP info is something that Jon and I have looked at for stock info and Rantsnrascals , who is as funny and courageous in person as she is electronically. The charismatic 3chickensandaboat , who has, after six months of blogging, taken the blogosphere by storm. (That may or may not be a word, but if Doctor Seuss can make his own words, so can I!). Northshoremama brought her tiny, sleeping person along with her, and the fabulous Princessofpavement and I had a chance to catch up. Those are just a few – so many great people!

The conference itself was about brands and bloggers getting together – the blog as both a form of social expression and a business model. It’s an interesting hybrid that has a lot of potential and scope. The keynote speech from Telus opened my eyes in a way that I hadn’t anticipated. I had no idea how much they had incorporated helping the community into their business model…I had to shift my mind from ‘big corporation’ to ‘good citizen that happens to be a corporation’, which I didn’t see coming! They build schools in poor parts of Guatemala, and provide hot lunches for underprivileged kids. Who knew??

It was also a perspective shift. Canadian Beef and the Chicken Farmers of Canada were the other two sponsors. As a girl who likes her steak (see my post on mystery shopping for how I keep myself in steak and bellinis), I loved hearing from the source of my favourite medium rare meat. And as a mom whose baby loves her morning scrambled eggs, I enjoyed finding more out about how chicken farming works. So it was a win-win all around. But it did lead me to realize that social media is a powerful, powerful thing. We have the opportunity to connect directly with the brands we care about and let them know how we, as consumers and individuals, want to work together. And that’s the most powerful lesson of all.