Beginning of scientific career (part 2)
The second part of the "Beginnings" will be devoted to how you can "join" the structure of a foreign university at the level of a bachelor or master program.
Before proceeding to the main unit, I want to clarify a bit the main message of the previous part. A person who is going to make a career of a scientist in Russia, probably guesses that his salary will be lower than that of his colleagues from Germany or the USA. But not everyone knows that, in most cases, our scientific process is separated from the “global” one (of course, there are bright exceptions, we still do not live with the Iron Curtain). I do not say now whether it is good or bad. Just this fact must be known and taken into account.
Now let's go further.
')
Undergraduate
Since we are talking about the "beginning" of a career, let's start from the beginning, that is, from entering university after school. Immediately make a reservation, I am not a great expert in this matter, but I can tell you some interesting things.
Firstly, there is a general rule: the lower the level, the more “political” factors are involved in the process. If you already have a PhD, you can try to get through to MIT, at least to the Sorbonne. The main thing is to have a good resume. If we are talking about admission to the first year, the mere fact of examining the case of a person who has completed a foreign school is not guaranteed. It all depends on the university and on the country.
Secondly, "primary higher education" is very different in different countries. Somewhere it costs money (US), but somewhere polls are free, and they even pay a stipend to have enough life (Finland).
Since I myself studied in Finland (although not in the bachelor’s program), I’ll tell you about how things are here.
It may seem surprising, but an application for free study at a Finnish university can be submitted by any person who graduated from a school, no matter where a citizen is no matter what state is. If successful, the student will be issued an invitation to the country. As far as I know, non-citizens are not paid a scholarship, but the student (even a foreigner) has a formal right to earn money, and this can, in principle, save.
Why did not half the world come running for such a freebie? First, contests are quite difficult. And secondly (by the way, this is probably the first), the Great Terrible Finnish Language protects the country no worse than the Great Wall of China. Not everybody can study at the university in Finnish :) On the other hand, there are plenty of students from neighboring Karelia (where there are schools with in-depth study of Finnish).
However, he who seeks will find. For example, North Karelia University of Applied Sciences (formerly Polytech) offers two undergraduate programs in English - “international business” and “design” (see the Education menu). Education, again, free.
Apparently, similar programs exist in other universities, and not only in Finland. In the end, the mentioned Polytech is an educational institution rather modest (they don't even have a master's degree program, only a bachelor degree) and does not represent anything supernatural.
As bonuses - all the social charms of the Bologna Convention, which I mentioned. Even on the bachelor's program there are trips to other countries, exchanges, internships ... And the “outgoing” student acquires the right to a scholarship, even if he is a foreigner :) These are the paradoxes. It is possible to find fault with the quality of education, but the experience of local student life is very interesting.
They asked me in PM about the documents. There are no general rules, you need to read the specific requirements on the site of a particular university. You need to be morally prepared for the TOEFL (they are not asked everywhere, but very often), for some essay on a given topic (“why I want to study here”) and for the school certificate translated into English.
Master's
Students with a bachelor’s degree are admitted to the master’s program. Pretty vague wording, isn't it? :) In practice, the following assumptions are reasonable:
1) Our "specialist" is generally equal to their master. If someone would argue the opposite, I can advise the magic office , which for a small amount of money can make a beautiful certificate, testifying to your being right. I myself did not use their services, I did not have to.
2) Our bachelor corresponds to their bachelor, our master corresponds to their master.
3) Our specialist, who has been studying for four years, can be equated to their bachelor’s degree, if the host institution accepts this. In my case, agreed; everything is decided by the awareness of the host institution about our system, the formal rules and the positive past experience of making our students :)
To the list of required documents, you can safely add a resume, as well as a “study record”, that is, an extract from the record book.
Free to get a master's degree is also possible. I would even say, the higher the level, the more places you can enter (for example, there are even more graduate programs). The logic here is simple: universities pay for graduates to universities. Taking our bachelor’s degree and making a master’s degree out of it in two years is a good thing (the student already has experience in learning, goes on purpose to study, is motivated, and is also limited to a visa in time). As an example, I can point out the native IMPIT program (until recently, everyone was paid a decent stipend on it). I also know for sure about programs in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.
Again, education is usually free, there is a chance (although not the biggest) to get a scholarship, training in English. (The situation in Switzerland is slightly different - education is paid there, but at the same time with the application for admission, you can apply for a grant, reimbursing all costs).
As you see, I am writing quite concisely, because I wanted to talk more about my scientific career, and not about studying at a university. Still, even the master's program is not a scientific level yet :) But since I took it, I will finish it. Probably worth mentioning a few more things:
- Our education was “Bologna” in a good sense: there are few required courses, many courses to choose from. At the same time it was necessary to collect a certain number of "credit points" for two years. Each course is worth a certain amount of credits. The answer to the topic “wavelets or HTML”: we would have “cost” a course on wavelets much more expensive than a course on HTML. In addition, the course on HTML would most likely not “pull” to the master's level, i.e. could be defended only in undergraduate. In reality, a small university cannot offer too many different courses, so either one has to take almost everything (to earn enough credits), or take courses at other universities, since many are allowed to go remotely or ask for additional coursework from teachers (this is also widely practiced) .
“Even if there are few world-class teachers at the university, at least world-class textbooks are usually taken.” For example, we studied artificial intelligence on the beautiful book of Russell and Norvig , and databases on brick of Ulman and others .
- A question with hostels and transfers. There are nowhere such terrible hostels as in Russia. And all because a different scheme is used. The student is given a cash subsidy for housing, in principle, sufficient for renting a small room or apartment in the private sector. At the same time, there are special student houses (in our opinion, “dormitories”, I don’t want to use this word), where the cost of renting is slightly lower, but not catastrophically lower. Student houses are indirectly owned by a university or state. Thus, the student usually settles with other students (and cheaper, and more fun), and the state gets back its subsidy. But if such housing looks like a cesspool, the money goes to the private sector, and the management of the department for maintenance of student houses has to think hard :)
Perhaps this finish. Next time we will talk about graduate school and the scientific process :)
Before proceeding to the main unit, I want to clarify a bit the main message of the previous part. A person who is going to make a career of a scientist in Russia, probably guesses that his salary will be lower than that of his colleagues from Germany or the USA. But not everyone knows that, in most cases, our scientific process is separated from the “global” one (of course, there are bright exceptions, we still do not live with the Iron Curtain). I do not say now whether it is good or bad. Just this fact must be known and taken into account.
Now let's go further.
')
Undergraduate
Since we are talking about the "beginning" of a career, let's start from the beginning, that is, from entering university after school. Immediately make a reservation, I am not a great expert in this matter, but I can tell you some interesting things.
Firstly, there is a general rule: the lower the level, the more “political” factors are involved in the process. If you already have a PhD, you can try to get through to MIT, at least to the Sorbonne. The main thing is to have a good resume. If we are talking about admission to the first year, the mere fact of examining the case of a person who has completed a foreign school is not guaranteed. It all depends on the university and on the country.
Secondly, "primary higher education" is very different in different countries. Somewhere it costs money (US), but somewhere polls are free, and they even pay a stipend to have enough life (Finland).
Since I myself studied in Finland (although not in the bachelor’s program), I’ll tell you about how things are here.
It may seem surprising, but an application for free study at a Finnish university can be submitted by any person who graduated from a school, no matter where a citizen is no matter what state is. If successful, the student will be issued an invitation to the country. As far as I know, non-citizens are not paid a scholarship, but the student (even a foreigner) has a formal right to earn money, and this can, in principle, save.
Why did not half the world come running for such a freebie? First, contests are quite difficult. And secondly (by the way, this is probably the first), the Great Terrible Finnish Language protects the country no worse than the Great Wall of China. Not everybody can study at the university in Finnish :) On the other hand, there are plenty of students from neighboring Karelia (where there are schools with in-depth study of Finnish).
However, he who seeks will find. For example, North Karelia University of Applied Sciences (formerly Polytech) offers two undergraduate programs in English - “international business” and “design” (see the Education menu). Education, again, free.
Apparently, similar programs exist in other universities, and not only in Finland. In the end, the mentioned Polytech is an educational institution rather modest (they don't even have a master's degree program, only a bachelor degree) and does not represent anything supernatural.
As bonuses - all the social charms of the Bologna Convention, which I mentioned. Even on the bachelor's program there are trips to other countries, exchanges, internships ... And the “outgoing” student acquires the right to a scholarship, even if he is a foreigner :) These are the paradoxes. It is possible to find fault with the quality of education, but the experience of local student life is very interesting.
They asked me in PM about the documents. There are no general rules, you need to read the specific requirements on the site of a particular university. You need to be morally prepared for the TOEFL (they are not asked everywhere, but very often), for some essay on a given topic (“why I want to study here”) and for the school certificate translated into English.
Master's
Students with a bachelor’s degree are admitted to the master’s program. Pretty vague wording, isn't it? :) In practice, the following assumptions are reasonable:
1) Our "specialist" is generally equal to their master. If someone would argue the opposite, I can advise the magic office , which for a small amount of money can make a beautiful certificate, testifying to your being right. I myself did not use their services, I did not have to.
2) Our bachelor corresponds to their bachelor, our master corresponds to their master.
3) Our specialist, who has been studying for four years, can be equated to their bachelor’s degree, if the host institution accepts this. In my case, agreed; everything is decided by the awareness of the host institution about our system, the formal rules and the positive past experience of making our students :)
To the list of required documents, you can safely add a resume, as well as a “study record”, that is, an extract from the record book.
Free to get a master's degree is also possible. I would even say, the higher the level, the more places you can enter (for example, there are even more graduate programs). The logic here is simple: universities pay for graduates to universities. Taking our bachelor’s degree and making a master’s degree out of it in two years is a good thing (the student already has experience in learning, goes on purpose to study, is motivated, and is also limited to a visa in time). As an example, I can point out the native IMPIT program (until recently, everyone was paid a decent stipend on it). I also know for sure about programs in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.
Again, education is usually free, there is a chance (although not the biggest) to get a scholarship, training in English. (The situation in Switzerland is slightly different - education is paid there, but at the same time with the application for admission, you can apply for a grant, reimbursing all costs).
As you see, I am writing quite concisely, because I wanted to talk more about my scientific career, and not about studying at a university. Still, even the master's program is not a scientific level yet :) But since I took it, I will finish it. Probably worth mentioning a few more things:
- Our education was “Bologna” in a good sense: there are few required courses, many courses to choose from. At the same time it was necessary to collect a certain number of "credit points" for two years. Each course is worth a certain amount of credits. The answer to the topic “wavelets or HTML”: we would have “cost” a course on wavelets much more expensive than a course on HTML. In addition, the course on HTML would most likely not “pull” to the master's level, i.e. could be defended only in undergraduate. In reality, a small university cannot offer too many different courses, so either one has to take almost everything (to earn enough credits), or take courses at other universities, since many are allowed to go remotely or ask for additional coursework from teachers (this is also widely practiced) .
“Even if there are few world-class teachers at the university, at least world-class textbooks are usually taken.” For example, we studied artificial intelligence on the beautiful book of Russell and Norvig , and databases on brick of Ulman and others .
- A question with hostels and transfers. There are nowhere such terrible hostels as in Russia. And all because a different scheme is used. The student is given a cash subsidy for housing, in principle, sufficient for renting a small room or apartment in the private sector. At the same time, there are special student houses (in our opinion, “dormitories”, I don’t want to use this word), where the cost of renting is slightly lower, but not catastrophically lower. Student houses are indirectly owned by a university or state. Thus, the student usually settles with other students (and cheaper, and more fun), and the state gets back its subsidy. But if such housing looks like a cesspool, the money goes to the private sector, and the management of the department for maintenance of student houses has to think hard :)
Perhaps this finish. Next time we will talk about graduate school and the scientific process :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/50670/
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