Many students choose to attend schools or universities outside their own home countries. Why do some students study abroad?
To attend schools or universities in a broad sense is a human activity, the motivation of which is fundamentally a psychological impulse driven by pressures from environment, practical or pragmatic demands, ambitions, and aspirations such as the anticipation or expectation for the future gain of fortune and fame. Viewed from the angle of each specific student who chooses to study abroad, the motivations of this activity is rendered more complex so that no valid conclusion can be made. However, if we study this question as a social phenomenon, using statistics and other modern mathematic methods, we will be able to reach some telling generalization.
In fact, however, the motivations that drive students to attend overseas schools are as complex as why the small vessel named May Flower took a group of puritans to the new world. A Korean undergraduate comes to Beijing University, China to pursue graduate study majoring in Chinese and culture possibly because she has a vision that in the near future, say five years or so, she will be able to develop a career in bilateral trade that calls for the knowledge about Chinese and Chinese culture. My roommate is an example in this case. An American high school student comes to study undergraduate program in Tsing Hua University or Indian Institute of Technology possibly because she has once had a dream about the countries after she watched a movie. Individual cases are always a kaleidoscope reflecting a myriad of distinct vivid pictures about human motivations.
Anthropologists, nevertheless, might show little interest in particular “trivial” cases although these cases might in fact be utmost important to the life of an individual student. What anthropologists are concerned is the “general” phenomenon. That is they are much more interested in the flow of students from one geographical locality to another in the form of “overseas study”. To discover the exodus, for instance, of Chinese young students emigrating to Canada, UK, and the USA, they use a series of statistic instruments and mathematical models after they have collected the first hand data from questionnaire or interview to draw conclusions about the reasons and effects of such a social phenomenon.
In the case of the flood of young students from the mainland of China to advanced countries, one sociologist in Peking University concluded, on the strength of a reliable survey conducted in 2007, that the exodus of Chinese students is attributed to complex or labyrinthine social, economic, and philosophical imbalance. He reported that due to the relatively slacken or slow economic development, Chinese in general have not sufficient channels to live a better and brighter life than what is predestined. The only way to make a better life in the past millennia is nothing but to study or leaning. If one has accomplished success in learning, measured by endless of examinations, she or he will be able to convert herself or himself from a common or mean social member into a governmental employee with remarkable social fame and fortune. But the candidates are overwhelming in number and sharp in quality, some Chinese then resort to international opportunities. Another important social reason is that to the majority of Chinese, whatever their social level and economic status quo, “western” or “foreign” degrees are believed to be superior to the domestic counterparts. All these, but not limited to, account for the tremendous migration of students.
One thing must emphasized is that in case of social study, however accurate or precise the mathematic instrument as statistics reach, the “image” reflected is not the “object” per se. therefore, the discussion of the reasons why students choose to study abroad is, at the best, approximate in nature.
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