Unfortunately, no. But some of our university partners may offer scholarships to outstanding international students. In addition, at the myUface.com blog we will give some advice about international financial aid opportunities.
myUface is owned and operated by three Americans who together have 27 years of experience in the field of international education, and who have spent a combined 19 years living abroad. We decided to start myUface because we got tired of seeing bright, talented students who dreamed of studying in the U.S. go to universities in the U.K. or Australia simply because the system of college admissions in the U.S. was so difficult to understand.
We want to help as many students as possible gain access to the world’s best education. That’s why we created myUface.com.
For all readers who have subscribed to the blog, I wanted to let you know I had to do a complete overhaul of the feed because it wasn’t updating properly. The problem is now fixed, but unfortunately you’ll need to resubscribe.
I’m sorry for the inconvenience!
Hi All,
I’m leaving for a week’s long vacation today. The blog will be onhiatus until I return. When I do return, I hope to be able to announce – finally – the opening of the main myUface page.
Thanks,
Nate
Today on our tour of U.S. States: Minnesota! The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes!
One of Minnesota's Ten Thousand Lakes
Activities
If you’ve been reading this series at all, by now you know that in many states, the primary activities involve the Great Outdoors. Well, guess what? The same is true of Minnesota, and not only because it has ten thousand lakes. There’s great hiking, fishing, canoeing and hunting throughout the state. But don’t forget about Minneapolis and Saint-Paul, two very developed cities that have all the amenities you can expect from big urban areas. In particular, Minnesota has a very lively, laid-back arts scene with lots of great museums and galleries – to say nothing of coffee shops and bars with live music.
One of Minnesota's many museums
Extracurricular activities
You can find a ton of clubs that take advantage of Minnesota’s wonderful natural beauty. You’ll also find many clubs that are focused on the arts, or on exploring the nooks and crannies of Minnesota’s creative and unique culture. And you can expect some clubs that explore the bright side of cold winters, such as clubs for ice fishing, hockey, etc.
Universities in Minnesota will tend to have a more laid back, “cool” social scene – less large, loud parties (although those exist) and more small, fairly intimate engagements. There is a lot to do in Minnesota, and universities tend to be fairly well situated within communities, so there is a lot of emphasis on going outside of the dorms (or the bars) and doing something. Wroth noting here: you can’t be in a Minnesota town or city for more than three minutes without finding a really cool place – a cafe, a coffee shop, something – to hang out in.
There are a ton of festivals and events going on in Minnesota, seemingly at all times of the year. They are often quirky (example: races with boats made from old milk cartons), but there are a lot of them and the atmosphere at such events is generally festive. The Saint Paul-Minneapolis area (known as “The Twin Cities”) is very beautiful and has tons of things to see and do. Besides that, there is the aforementioned nature in Minnesota. There really are 10,000 lakes – or it as least seems like there are. And don’t forget the shore of Lake Superior, which provides something like an oceanfront – including lighthouses!
OK, some bad news here. Minnesota experiences extremes in temperature – very, very hot summers and very, very cold winters. Minnesota also gets just about every kind of bizarre, extreme weather – heavy rain, hail, snow, blizzards, tornadoes, thunderstorms, etc. Now, for those of us who like to experience different weather, this variety is a good thing – but if you’re looking for a more constant climate, you may want to look elsewhere.
If you’re interested in more weather data about Minnesota than you could possible imagine, or if you just want to know how much rain fell in St. Paul on October 12, 1965, go to this site (and bring your calculators).
The cost of living in St. Paul – Minneapolis, Minnesota is 39.7% less than in New York; but salaries are only 9.9% less than in New York. (Note to self: move to Minnesota).
Source is here.
Holy Toledo! Or should I say, Holy Duluth! Minnesota has a lot of universities. And here’s a list of them!
When you spend every day working with U.S. universities and international students on gritty details like applications, tuition and financial aid, it’s easy sometimes to lose sight of the big picture. The big picture is this: universities in the U.S. are amazing communities of learning that empower students to do research that will have a real impact.
Take this Pakistani graduate student – he’s come up with a controversial and difficult subject for his graduate research. He wants to create a computer model of how suicide bombs explode.
Usmani’s aim is to save lives by helping everyone from emergency workers to investigators predict — or re-create — in painstaking detail all that happens when a terrorist’s bomb bursts in a crowded place.
Can you imagine the controversy this topic has caused?
At seminars, some scholars appeared incredulous and suspicious. This spring, one stormed out of Usmani’s presentation at an engineering symposium in Nashville.
It’s a very unconventional subject, but one that could produce life-saving research.
He built a computer simulation that looks at crowd formations, the bomber’s location and the type of explosives. The model could be used to minimize deaths and injuries by influencing crowd control. It could aid emergency workers seeking victims by showing where they’re most likely to be amid the rubble. Or it could be used by investigators who reconstruct attacks to solve mysteries, a method seen in television shows such as “CSI” on CBS.
Daniel Kirk, the 34-year-old rocket propulsion engineer who is Usmani’s doctoral adviser at Florida Tech, overcame his surprise about the topic by understanding the goal of saving lives. The two men got to know each other, sometimes meeting into the wee hours of the day.
“When you peel away all the issues as to why he wants to study this, what seems to be at the core is a very altruistic question: How can I use this computer simulation to help save lives and minimize injuries?”
These are the sorts of innovative – if controversial – learning projects that happen all the time at U.S. universities. Forget what you think about Usmani’s research – just consider what it means that he was able to conduct it in the first place. My hope is that this very freedom, which the U.S. university system gives freely to all of its students, at almost any level, will produce the kind of innovations that make real impacts in the everyday lives of people around the planet.
OK, folks, get ready. Today we’re going to a state that most international students aren’t even thinking about: Alaska.
But why aren’t they thinking about it? Do they know that Alaska is the largest state? That it certainly is one of the most beautiful states? That it has a modern city as its capitol? Or that it has more than 6,000 miles of coastline, more than the entire continental United States? Or that, like every other U.S. state, it has great universities that are looking for international students?
No? Well, put on your shorts and t-shirts (Alaska is warm in the summer, folks), and let’s head up the great north!
Alaska is a paradise for those who love outdoor adventure. There are, of course, your normal outdoor activities: hiking, fishing, camping, etc. But why stop there? Try whale watching, glacier-hiking, sea kayaking, or dog sledding. The vastness and variety of Alaska’s natural landscape means that you can engage in practically any outdoor activity . . . well, OK, maybe not surfing. If you’re an indoors sort of person, um, let’s see . . . OK, maybe it’s not the state for you. There are some historic sites, and wonderful opportunities to experience native culture, and the culture of Russian settlers. Also, many of Alaska’s outdoor wonders are easily accessible in cars, so if you’re not the adventurous type you can still experience the beauty of Alaska.
Extracurricular activities
With an abundance of natural beauty, you shouldn’t be surprised if many of Alaska’s universities have every possible kind of wilderness club. Alaska is also a natural place to practice photography, painting, or other visual arts. Snowboarding and skiing are also common extracurricular activities. If you’re interested in biology or other natural sciences, you can expect a lot of activity in that sphere as well.
Friends, I’m not going to lie to you. I was not able to locate much information on social life at Alaska’s campuses. Judging from student reviews, however, social life isn’t too bad, coming in with a C+ grade. They must be doing something fun, even if I can’t figure out what it is. I’m sure they have all the normal student activities (parties, dances, concerts, etc.), and besides, there’s too much to do outside!
OK, quick exercise. Guess how many national parks are located in Alaska. If you guessed “10,” you’re wrong, on the low side. Alaska has a whopping sixteen national parks. I won’t list them all here – you can see them via this link for yourself. Worth special mention is DeNali National Park, home to North America’s tallest mountain. You could live in Alaska all your life, traveling to a natural tourist site every weekend, and not see all there is to see. IT IS THAT BIG, PEOPLE!
OK, it’s impossible to sum up the weather in Alaska. It would be just as hard as talking about the weather in the United States. But a few quick points:
Other than that, you’re going to need to read about it yourself.
The cost of living in Anchorage, Alaska is 33% less than in New York; salaries are only 5% less than in New York. Source is here.
Here is Wikipedia’s list of Alaska’s universities.
To conclude our long series about financial aid, I wanted to take a step back from all the information about scholarships, tuition waivers, loans and so on and ask a very basic question:
What is a U.S. education worth? What is its value?
And the reason I want to ask that is this: many international students approach studying in the U.S. as something that would be “nice,” provided they can get financial aid. “Sure,” they say, “I’d love to study in the U.S., but only if I can get a scholarship.” These students are not placing a high value on U.S. education, since they are in effect saying that they would only study in the U.S. if it were free.
Well, for the vast majority of students, it’s not free. Period. Like it or not, most of you will have to pay a significant portion of the bill for your studies. Whether that portion is 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% will depend on your ability to sucessfully secure financial aid; but the chances of getting 100% of your education funded are pretty slim.
So, you need to ask yourself, how much are you willing to pay, to sacrifice, in order to get a U.S. education?
In answering this question, it’s useful to think of education as an investment in your future. A better education will, generally speaking, get you a better job, with a higher salary, and more chances to make a large impact, which could lead to an even higher salary, etc. In trying to quantify exactly how good an investment education is, some have suggested that the “return” on education is between 10 and 15%:
Private rates of return . . . range from 10 to 15 percent – levels that are competitive with returns on most alternative investments available to individuals.
Now, of course, like every investment, for this one to work you, the investor, have to make good decisions. You have to research career paths, select a good university and program, and maintain the value of your investment through hard work and study. But, assuming you do all these things, you can expect a healthy return on your educational investment.
Keep that in mind as you look for financial aid. Remember, it’s great if you can find someone to help pay for your university study; but the person who has the most to benefit from your education is you, and so you should therefore consider investing your own money as well.
By combining your talents and funds with modest assistance from the different sources we’ve talked about, you can make your dream of studying in the U.S. a reality.
I want to apologize breifly for not posting the past few days. I did a complete renovation of the office in my home, and while the renovation was ongoing my computer was sitting under a sheet to protect it from dust, debris, children’s toys, etc. The room is more or less done, however, and I am returning to daily posting.
Welcome to the myUface blog!
Our goal is to provide you with all the information you need to pursue your education in the United States.
