When I was a senior in high school, the only question anyone ever asked was, “So, where are you going to college?” Now that I’m a senior in college, I’m plagued by a worse one: “So, what’s next after graduation?”
I knew the answer to the first one, but I’ve got barely three months till graduation, and I still don’t have a concrete answer to the second.
Job? Yeah, that sounds good. Where? You could answer that better than me. And grad school? Sure, maybe, after a couple years.
The thing is, no one is ever satisfied with those kinds of wishy-washy answers, but as I’m sure many soon-to-be college grads can attest, these are frankly the best that I can give at this point. I’m 22. I’m nowhere near equipped to make decisions about the career path I want to take for the rest of my life, and the pressure to do so may send me running screaming back into the arms of grad school or off to another country to escape.
In fact, escape is sounding pretty damn good right about now. A friend of mine recently posted a list of seven countries where graduate school is a fraction of the cost of the U.S. equivalent, and I basically fell in love. Travel to another country, go to school and not have to sign away my first born child or six of my internal organs to pay tuition? Sign me up.
I could journey to France to the École Normale Superior de Paris (which ranks 28 on the list of top universities in the world) and improve my French skills, of which I have exactly zero. Tuition is 190 Euros a year for international students, by the way. And you get to live in Paris. If Europe’s not my jam, I can head to Mexico to the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, which is about $1,000 USD a year, or South Africa. I could attend a university in Johannesburg or Cape Town and take advantage of the post-apartheid luxurious standard of living and learning that far outstrips the U.S. or European counterparts for $4,000 a year.
Want to know how much grad school costs at the U? $3,731.63 for a general graduate program for 12 credit hours.
Yeah, I don’t think so. Not with options abroad.
I haven’t even mentioned the two best ones yet, either. I could enroll in classes in the University
of Barcelona, one of the three best universities in Ibero-America, for around $2,000 a year. At this
point, I’m willing to take any option to get back to Spain, and this particular one is looking especially fabulous lately. And if not, there’s always Sweden. And why Sweden?
Because grad school in Sweden is free. Yeah. As in, completely. Uppsala University is a socialist paradise, nevermind that a beer is between four and five Euro in Sweden. With free tuition, it doesn’t even matter.
As a desperately travel-hungry 22-year-old, I would honestly rather peace out to another university in another country for a couple years or so instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to my impending graduation. After all, you’re only young once. The world is waiting, and I want to see as much of it as I can. And if grad school is the most affordable way to do so, then I’m all in.
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