Taking the first leap: Motivations and Aspiration.

Episode-4-The_First_Leap

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 1s Hello. Good evening. Happy Thanksgiving. It's Thanksgiving Day today in the US. It's been a great day. It's about 5:00. Almost 5:00. 1s Here in. 1s Not to. Sunnyside, California. 1s Welcome to episode two. 3s The episode would go over. 1s Deciding to study. I call this the first leap, which is deciding to study. 2s I aim to explore the initial stages of deciding to study abroad. It's a plan. It's a it can be a very comprehensive process, and it's always best if you were to sit down and consider all your options. 1s And it's usually the very critical step in the journey. So you have to be very, very, uh, deliberate in the step. 1s So I'll start with me. Uh. For me. 2s I. I'd given some of this story in a previous episode. Um, I was very deliberate in deciding to study in the US. I started out. In 2014 when I first visited. Initially visited the US. 1s And the. The aim was just to see what the US had. And I ended up staying with a friend who. 1s Worked at Goldman Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. He worked as a software engineer. 1s And. He was the one that primarily jumpstarted the journey by letting me know that it was possible to come to the US, be an international student, and end up as a software engineer. 1s In any industry. 1s And most of this pathway. Most of this experience that I'm sharing stems from interactions with him. So one of the first things I would say out of the bath right now is. Please always share information. Always get information from people who stay here. They are the best source of resource. They are the ones that have been through the process, so it's always best. So moving on. I listened to him 1s and he explained, you know, the process to me. And I said, okay, just sounds like a great plan. I would, you know, take it up. And, you know, that started the journey. So why do us so one of the things you would mention is one of Australia or the UK or Canada or a Scandinavian country. 1s So for me UK, I had already gone to the UK. I couldn't get a job in the UK in tech. I did lots of interviews. Um worked as a telemarketer. 1s Who worked in grocery stores. Um, it just didn't work out. It worked out for some other people. I just, you know, the last minute I wanted I didn't want to break the rules of my visa, and I left. I went back to Nigeria. 2s Canada was another option. It was on the table. So this was 2014. One of the things that. 2s Drew me to the US. Whether or not Canada is the strength of the tech system, the ecosystem in America. I just didn't see that existed in Canada. So at the time, the allure of the US was this was the central engine of the tech industry. 1s And not just that, I had just seen someone that had passed through the US and is successful. So that that reinforced my decision to to take the US. 1s So I don't know. You know, somebody, once you cross that path, the next question would be. So how did you choose your school? Why did you pick it? You know, how many schools did they apply to? So I'll just give you a backdrop of what the US is like. So a lot of people do not understand the sheer size of the US. So if you are in a country, say, Nigeria or you're in Kenya or you're in Malaysia or Japan or somewhere, America has 331 million people. 1s It's huge. To give you more context, California City, the state that I live in, has 32 million people now. Canada. 1s The size of Canada is bigger than the entire US, so listen carefully. The size of Canada is bigger than the entire US. California has 32 million people. The entire. 1s Space of Canada has roughly the same amount of population as California. 1s That gives you an idea of how big and how huge the US is. So the US is a very, very huge country. 1s And that tells you that there are lots of schools in the entire number of schools. According to the website that I checked just before recording this list, 3982 schools post-secondary, by the way, not, um, entire schools post-secondary. 3982. So you have huge amounts of people in the US. That's the sheer volume. So next question would be how in the world do you choose schools? So I'll give you some criteria to look out for when trying to figure out what school should I go. And those criterias don't involve ranking. The first thing I would advise is never look at a school ranking to make your choice. School rankings are marketing pamphlets. It's just marketing. It's not different from. 1s I want to get on an airline to go from one state to another. 1s It's the same plane. It's the same route. It's just different ways of getting there, different services. It's the same thing with schools. It's the same education. I'll get to that in a bit. 1s To 3982. The first thing you should always consider. 1s Is the cost of living. 2s That is the first thing you should always consider when picking up schools. So. 2s There is a website that I have opened on my computer. 2s This website is called. 1s The API. It's API. Org. It's, um. I forget what API is, but essentially they have an API family budget calculator on there that measures the income of a family needs in order to obtain a modest, yet adequate standard of living. I would advise that if you're going to decide to pick a particular school, it doesn't matter where. Make sure you know what the cost of living in that area is, because it doesn't matter. You would have to pay this amount to live in that state. Doesn't matter if it's an Ivy League school. Doesn't matter if it's not an Ivy League school. This cost of living is a factor that you should consider because you have to eat. You'd have to sleep somewhere. You'd have to entertain yourself. So you cannot run away from cost of living. So one of the biggest factor. Is affordability. Can I afford to live in that city? So I'll give you an example. If I wanted to go to school in Houston, Texas. So I'm typing this on my computer right now. And I wanted to go to school in the Houston Woodlands Sugarland area. For one, adult housing is $893 a month. Food is $250 a month. Transportation. You need transportation because you know Texas is a is a huge place. You'd have to you know, there's not a credible. Public transport, so you'd have to make sure you can get yourself on one point or another. That's about 797 a month. So. Depends. Um, everything monthly you would need is $3,000. In in the Houston area. I'll give you another one. So, you know, some people might say, okay, that's Houston, maybe you are applying to University of Texas or Texas State or whatever. That's an example. 1s Let's say, for example, you wanted to live in New York. 1s You know, I want to. I want to live in New York. So it depends on where you want to stay. Let's say you're going to go to the Buffalo area. Buffalo Niagara Falls area. 2s How much would you spend? We'll spend $743. Again, that's the Buffalo area, not the New York metro. So let's say, for example, you wanted to do New York Metro. I wanna stay in that right at the heart of New York Metro. Your housing. 1s Is $1,760 a month. Your food is $350 a month. Transportation is easier because it has a very good public transport. So you spend $433, but you'd have to spend $4,000 every month in New York. So you understand it depends on the state. So for example. So my advice. It's always go to a state where you have lower cost of living because you'd have to spend locally. You have to spend living expenses in any city anyways, so why not choose the cheapest? I know the next question would be, but what about the schools? We'll get there. This is the first, um, line of entry cost of living. Once you've narrowed it down. So let's say, for example, you decide to go to Arkansas. So I can say I want to go to Arkansas. 1s Area. De fire. Ville area. 1s Housing in Arkansas is $579 a month. Food is 260. Transportation. You would only need $2,840 in Arkansas. 2s So that's one option. So you can say okay good option. So you need to be aware of the US. The way the US is. So you have the East Coast. You have the West Coast, you have the South, you have the, you know, everything in between. So you have why only South Dakota, not Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, those are all you know. Those are all states, right? You know, smack in the Midwest, you have in the South, you have Georgia, you have Alabama, you have Louisiana. Those are typically, you know, very good cost of living. So my advice look for a, you know, the New York's and the California's are very expensive to live in. They might have great schools. But the question is can you pay your way through live in that. That's so that's so that's one option. And how do I choose my schools. So that's option number one. You need to know what the cost of living is. 2s Number two in terms of the school is. Of year opportunities for teaching assistantships. Research assistantships. The two schools offer this. And naturally. So you need to be aware that you have, you know, different schools. So you have the private schools. You have the public schools. I would always suggest you restrict yourself to public schools, because those are the ones that will probably have teaching assistantships, research assistantships and the likes. Very important. So look out for those who read up on the school's website. You know, how do they cater for students? If you're a grad student, it's just look out for that. If you're an undergrad students, they have undergrad programs that can cater for some things that you might need in terms of funding. Be aware. So that's the next thing. So after you figured out affordability, look for and the reason why I look for the teaching assistantships and research assistantships is if you know how much salary they pay. You would be able to then benchmark. You'll be able to then benchmark that against the cost of living and go. If I were to come into this city and I got a teaching assistantship or your research assistantship. Is this enough to cover for for someone like me? To give an example, when I went to grad school. 1s I was paid $1,400 a month. My rent was $600 a month, so I knew that I could pay rent and I could eat. I went to a school in Texas. We just went through the stats right now. It's cheap to live in Texas, so I figured that, okay, I would survive if I were to go there and, you know, to give you the numbers for Texas again. If you go to the Houston area. On the website, again, the epilogue website. And you did a search for the Houston area. The housing right now is 893. This is just one bedroom Houston area. I didn't I didn't even school in the Houston area, excluding the place that was, you know, cheaper. But it gives you an idea that it's not going to be more than like $800 a month. It can be higher depending on the area, but at least you have a number. So if you're earning $2,000 as a research assistant, you know you'll be able to pay. For living costs and what you would need is like 3100. You know, it says $3,113 on the website. But again, this is a you know, this has a transportation, health care and other things. But this gives you an idea that if you were to go to school in Houston, you would be able to at least get through it. So that's for affordability. The next one was, you know, we did a teaching assistantship once. You can figure that out okay. They do have. But the next important thing is. For that school is one of the professors working on. 1s What what kind of what kind of research do they have? 1s You know. Do they have any NSF funding? 2s Speaking of NASA, let me just tell you why that is important. So what is NSF before we continue? 1s NSF, essentially. Is the National Science Foundation. It's an independent agency of the United States federal government. And it supports fundamental research and education in all of the non-medical fields of science and engineering. For medical fields, they have their own foundation. They have their own funding for anything non-medical for science and engineering. They found the reason why you look at what the professors are working on is because the NSF gives funding to people who have given, you know, enough documentation as to why their research matters. So what do you do? You look at what the professors are working on and you find out from them. Is this interesting to you? 1s And notice, I did not mention anything about the caliber of the school, because NSF doesn't care about the caliber of the school. NSF just cares that the research is advancing the principles and the values of the United States. So if they have NSF funding, it is a high indicator that that professor, doesn't matter what school is in, is doing great work that might interest you. The reason why you don't look at the school they are in is because professors move all the time, and you might start with him in a school somewhere and he moves. You move with him, he would take you alongside with him. Now he might move into the city. That might be more expensive. But that's not the point. The point here now is that you are doing this research because the funding is available to complete the research and it interests you. So also are there research papers were cited. That's a good indicator to say, okay, so this professor is doing great work. So do not do that. Do other things. The next thing. You should look at is. 1s What are the various schools in that area? So. 1s To give you an idea. 1s Every US state has a state university. 1s Even idea. There are 15 US states. 1s Each state has a state university. So an example would be Iowa State University. Another university in that same state would be University of Iowa. So there are two different schools. One is a state university. One is kind of like a federal university. So. It's. So that's one way you can look at different schools. So if you. So once you've decided that okay the cost of living is good, the research is good. The next thing you do is pick a state and then start putting either um x State University. So X being the name of the state. So an example would be Texas State University is different from University of Texas. You then do your research that way to find out, you know, what are the various schools I can apply to. What are the various professors? What are they doing? So that's one way to start to to start looking for schools. Now another important. Criteria is this. Schools have different programs. And one of the fundamental things with understanding. Picking a school is do they have proper accreditation? 1s Now the biggest accreditation for engineering. So I keep talking about engineering. Um, I'm not restricting this message to engineers. It would always be good to refer to other fields of study. I'm referring to the field of study I'm more knowledgeable about. So accreditation would exist for engineering schools. You would exist for business programs. It would exist for medical programs. It would exist for legal programs. So but the accreditation I'm talking about right now is the Abet accreditation. So what is it? It's a nonprofit, non-governmental agency that accredits programs notes, not schools programs. So you might have a school that has multiple programs. They accredit programs in applied and natural science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. Even accreditation provides assurance that a college or university program meets the quality standards of the profession for which the program for which that program prepares graduates. Decorative programs, not institutions that provide specialized accreditation for post-secondary programs within degree granting institutions. So another factor. 1s Is to look at the accreditation. So the Abet accreditation for Stanford. 2s Is the same about accreditation for the 1s for the for the 500 best school in America is the same accreditation. Um, if you're wondering what Abbott means, actually means the accreditation board for Engineering and Technology, that's what it means. So it's the same thing. So if I say, oh, the computer science program in Harvard is better than your computer science program, it is possible that the caliber of people teaching the programs are good, but the accreditation and the way that the standard is being met is different. Everybody has different teaching styles. Abbott aims to say that the quality standard of the profession for which the program prepares the graduates has met their requirements. Once you meet that, you've met the requirements, so the accreditation of the school matters. So that's another factor to consider the accreditation. 1s So we've been through the, you know, picking schools, the cost of living, the opportunities for teaching, uh, for, for a job on campus or the teaching assistant or research assistant, the NSF funding. Um, another factor that I would like to give. 1s Um, and this is very important. And I see this most likely is don't restrict yourself to specialized courses. 1s So don't say I want a master's in data science or a master's in data analytics. I'll tell you why you end up restricting yourself for the job market. 2s This. Schools come up with this, um, titles as a marketing ploy to just get students to apply. So don't restrict yourself to specialized courses. Generalized courses offer you more flexibility for job opportunities. I would give an example if I were to do a master's in computer science, and I take courses in AI, cybersecurity, data analytics. If I wanted to apply for a machine learning rule, I could apply. 1s I can apply for a machine learning rule today. I can apply for a data science role again the next time. It helps me to be flexible because what you want is for you to, you know, get a job, eventually. Get experience. If you have a restricted, um, degree program like a master's in AI. You know what happens if you don't get AI jobs? But you're not going to tell somebody you want machine learning, they're going to go. Maybe you did not go through machine learning, so you handicap yourself. 1s Also, when you're filing opt H-1b green card process, it becomes it can become difficult with specialized courses because. 1s The requirements are usually very generic for this programs for, for for the file for your applications. And the last thing you want is for someone that is. Going through your application to not understand exactly what this is. So because when when they are assessing your Opt, your H-1b or green card applications, the people who are assessing are not experts. It's not an AI. Experts say the actual application, it's someone probably with an English major. You want to make it very easy for your application to pass scrutiny as easy as possible. I want to the best ways to do that is to make sure that your your master's program is as generic as possible. You can always specialize. Eventually you can take classes in R, you can take classes in machine learning, you can take subclass. There are lots of those classes. At the end of the day, you're going to get an AOA B class on your AOA. Be great and you're done and you move on. So don't don't be too bogged down trying to be able to have a PhD or a master's in machine learning. It's not going to help. Eventually. It might be a handicap, but if you make it as generic as possible, you are flexible in changing your you know, you can decide like, you know what, I'm not going to do this. I want to do something in general. I want to do something with large language models. I want to do something different allows you to do that. 1s So. 1s The pros and cons. 3s It takes a while to do this application. Um, 1s another, another, another point to make is most people have asked me in the past to do I need to take GRE or do I not need to take jewelry? 1s My personal. Again, my own personal view is always take the GRE. 1s Um, because it's just a requirement that you've met. I know some schools are phasing them out, but if the GRA is an option, I would have always advise for you to take the GRE. It's valid for five years. You don't have to take it after you take it once for five years. I would advise you take the GRE, take the TOEFL exams. It gives you more flexibility in applying. 1s So another question I usually get is how many schools do I apply to. This is very important, um, for your visa processing. Um, for a student who is applying for school, a bona fide student. The embassy expects you to not restrict yourself to particular states in the U.S.. As a student, someone that is really, really. Pushing for learning. You would apply our advice to at least three. 1s To us most to utmost 5 or 7 and make sure they're not in the same state. Now notice I'm giving you criteria for affordability. You can use that. There are lots. I mentioned a bunch of states. Um, you know, states in the South, Texas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa. Pick 4 or 5 of them. Pick a state school or different schools. Look at the professors and apply to like 3 to 5. If you apply to one, you're not going to convince a visa officer that you're a serious student. Why are you applying to one school? You the school. Like I said, they have 3982 schools in America. You cannot apply to one school. It doesn't make you a bona fide student applying to, like, five schools. I think you show seriousness. And those five schools are in different states and you give the reasons. So if they were to ask you, why did you pick the school? What do you say? I love what the professors are doing. I can afford to pay the school fees. Now you notice that the criteria that you just gave you are criteria. You give a visa officer to say to let them know that you are truly a bonafide student. So that's the reason why. 1s I outlined those criterias in the beginning. 1s Pros and cons. Advantages? Um. Huge advantages. You you get to. 2s You work in the industry, you know, if it's tech, you get to see a real world working experience. You work with smart engineers, you see how the the meal is cooked. You see how engineers work. You are part of the, you know, one of the biggest opportunities in the US. And you will become part of that. So that's a huge draw. 1s Lots of career prospects. You have cutting edge facilities, you have the NSF funding. You have national labs that are doing in-depth research. Research that would, you know, give birth to the next a business model. So you have researchers working on the next cutting edge network technologies, broadband technologies, machine learning technologies. And then if you have it for applications in the missile areas and for military, you know, so there's so many things. And you can you have access to that as, as a student it's it's incredible. You don't have the amount of national labs you have in America is huge. And those are opportunities. You have a multicultural experience, you get to see different kinds of people. You get to learn different cultures. You no longer have tunnel vision about how things work. You you get to meet people from different cultures who have experienced different things, and that's a huge learning opportunity. Can get that in any most European countries who are generally homogeneous. Nothing wrong with being homogeneous just means that you don't have a diversity of experience. 2s And the disadvantage is you will feel homesick. 1s America is very individualistic. Everyone keeps to their own silo. So you would have to understand that that is the way things work here. It's not bad, it's just different. So you have to learn to adapt. 1s Um, also, you need to figure out your finances. So you need to know how much money do I have committed to this process? 1s Another thing that you should consider is you need to have a timeline. Never rush in an application for school. There are two. You know, there are two, uh, times you can have applications done September or January. Um, in another episode, I'm going to outline the advantages and disadvantages of different application time points and things like that. Most probably is going to be the episode after this one. But you know, keep listening and you would get way much more information for myself. 3s So for cultural loss of cultural insights, I intend to cover most of this with interviews from people. So I'm going to be interviewing current students, international students who are currently in the US studying, and I'm going to use that to, um, get you practical information from them. And also the the podcast series would more like chart their journey over time. So I'll be bringing them back for future episodes so you can see what has changed and different things that you know that they're going through. So that way you basically get the US experience through the lens of someone that is here. 2s So I, I believe this is going to be a good place to stop this particular episodes. If there's a part two for this, I would, you know, let you know in, in a, in a future episode for you to know know what to expect. I've thoroughly enjoyed, you know, letting you know about my thought process into into this uh, and I and I look forward to, you know, to speaking, uh, more with you, to you about the next steps. Thank you very much for listening. Herbal. Wonderful rest of your day.