Study in USA: tips, opportunities

By VICTOR KALALANDA, Illinois, USA, October 22, 2021*

The anonymity of newspaper readers makes writers to sometimes wonder whether anybody ever reads their work.

You might not know this but writing can be so onerous that it takes the whole day for some writers to carve out just a single sentence. Historically, Conrad and Balzac are good examples.

So it is all the more exciting—and fulfilling—when a writer like myself hears from consumers of his work, not always about the literary merits of his work, but also in terms of specific requests for guidance or help.

About two weeks ago when I wrote about my experiences as a graduate student in the United States, a good gentleman wrote to me: “Wow! [Your article] energised my dream again. America has been my dream country. I’ve been trying to get there and pursue a PhD in gender studies, especially when offered a scholarship. How do you help in that area?”

I replied almost immediately, but I also feel obliged to reproduce here a longer version of my response to the subject of that question.

I suspect that many people out there, perhaps you, need such information, but may not be as fortunate to access it.

I present this as a combination of tips and opportunities, not based on hearsay, but on my own first-hand experience as a Zambian studying in America.

Finding a university

As the world’s largest economy, the United States of America boasts of numerous universities that offer a wide range of opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate education.

Though best known for its Ivy League universities such as Harvard, what makes the country stand out, as the ideal locale of study, is the fact that it appears to have a university for everyone.

So while you may not get into an elite university, you can always get quality education, which cannot otherwise be obtained, at many other American universities.

Your first goal as a prospective student should therefore be to identify a university where you meet the minimum qualifications in order to begin the application process.

Of course, Google comes in handy, with online resources like College Navigator, where you can search for different universities.

Another easier way is to search for a state and its list of colleges.

From this you can create your own simple inventory and visit the various university websites in order to familiarise yourself with their departments and admission requirements.

As an example, the state of Illinois alone has about 125 colleges and universities, where you can pursue your degrees.

If your interest is mechanical engineering, as such, your goal is to handpick your university of choice and check out the department or school related to your programme.

As a starting point, this helps you to roughly survey what opportunities lie ahead in higher education in the USA.

Send a cold email

Sending a cold email is the practice particularly of graduate students who wish to study in the USA but have no source of funding.

For many prospective graduate students who are not fortunate enough to win a pre-eminent scholarship like the Rhodes, this becomes the second best option to obtain funding for university education in America.

By definition, a cold email is an unsolicited email that you send to a professor with whom you have never interacted before.

In other words, it is an introductory message about you, with the goal of eliciting a response from the recipient.

The collaborative nature of universities allows them to share contacts of all their professors on the websites.

Many of these professors receive funding for their research and every semester they are on the lookout for students they could work with as research assistants.

So research assistantships are a major type of funding model for international students and they entail waiving off part of your tuition and paying you a monthly stipend, which you would use to meet your living costs abroad.

So after identifying a suitable university and programme for your interests, carefully look at the profiles of different faculty members in your department and send them cold emails.

Pick a professor and take trouble to understand and browse through the research that they do on Internet sites like Google Scholar.

What you basically do in your cold email is to talk about their research and indicate that you have similar interests and you would like to work with them as a research assistant after your admission as a master’s or PhD student.

This is one sure way of getting a place in a university of your choice in America!

There are many other options for funding in terms of scholarships for both postgraduate and undergraduate students.

Most university websites carry a page about their scholarships, so your role is to gauge your papers against their standards and apply.

Admission requirements

Most universities in America require you to submit an application form, English proficiency test scores like TOEFL or Duolingo, copies of your academic qualifications such as degree certificate, including recommendation letters.

Depending on the institution, some of these requirements like the English proficiency score or the cost of the application form are waived.

Your goal should be to go for the most affordable option depending on the choices available to you.

It sounds ridiculous but American universities demand for language scores just to be sure that you can speak English, understand it and write it well. Many student associations are currently fighting to change such restrictive policies.

Travel documents

Once you have applied, earned admission and engaged your professors, you need to secure such travel documents as your passport, visa and air ticket.

This happens to be the final stage to begin your education in the US.

From my experience, it is better to work on all these processes at the same time to avoid any lapses.

My own sequence involved writing a cold email to a professor, securing admission and finally preparing all necessary travel documents for my trip.

But—never forget—you need some extra money to begin your student life in a foreign country. Ensure you take care of that too!

*Original copy was first published in the Zambia Daily Mail on the stated date