The trend of studying abroad


Se registró el día April 8, 2012
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Since its inception, Oriental philosophy has always stressed the importance of education. It is widely believed that academics determines the roles of a person in an Oriental society, and the scholars get the lion's share of the opportunities offered. Therefore, in a typical East Asian family, the ultimate goal of parents is to train their children to become scholarly successful. For some decades, the economies of East Asian countries have vigourously improved, leading to better economic situations in each family. More money than ever has been spent on children's education. The situation can be clearly observed in countries from China, South Korea, to Vietnam or Singapore.

Nowadays, rich families no longer consider universitites in their countries a priority. They have turned to look West, to the highly acclaimed universities in the US or the UK. They believe that a diploma from such an university is a ticket to career opportunities, a way of guaranteeing family reputation. They don't even hesitate to spend enormous sums to polish their children's applications, or to make great gifts to universities, just to ensure that their children get a place in a top college.

Those efforts of rich parents should be appreciated, since they care much their children's future. However, they forget one thing: They may be doing the best for their children to be admitted to colleges, but they do not prepare for their children to survive and succeed in college environment. Remember, college life is an entirely different environment, requiring the determination of each student. Therefore, students may succeed, but it's not rare to see the cases of dropping from colleges for being unable to pursue the curriculum.

In fact, parents can't be stopped from caring about their next generation, especially about education. After all, that is a tradition rooted for thousands of years in the minds of Eastern people. Preparing only for college admission, but not for college life, however, is a huge misconception.

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