My wife is a Philippine American, and we moved here to
attend school. It just makes sense for our situation. In the U.S. we would have
to do the whole full time student with a full time job thing…AGAIN. Here on the
other hand, we can comfortably live off of our savings and focus on school. My
advice to anyone kicking around the same idea is to have an end plan, ignore
what other people tell you and do your own research.
For instance, if you plan to attend medical school here,
people will come out of the woodwork to dump all over your plan. And this is
exactly what they will tell you, “If you get a medical degree in the
Philippines, you will only qualify to be a nurse in the U.S.”. They will then
support this “fact” with an example of a guy they know, that knows a guy who
works in a hospital with a nurse, who has a Philippines medical degree.
Just ignore these people because they are simple minded
crabs that make assumptions based on surface information. In fact, I’d try to
keep your plans as vague as possible when talking to most folks. What they don’t
know about said guy is that his career change might have been based solely on
immigration issues. Maybe he couldn’t get a visa straight up, but he could
secure a contract to work as a nurse and he swallowed his pride and went for
it. Or maybe he’s at a point in his life where he doesn’t want to work for
slave wages to satisfy a 2nd residency requirement. Who knows?
I don’t recommend it, but if you come here to get a standard
undergraduate degree that does not require licensing to work, you could
probably just wing it. If you pursue a degree that will require licensing, then
do your research and have a plan. The plan will be different for everyone based
on their citizenship, where they plan to work, family, etc.
I’ll use my wife as an example because her citizenship makes
her a more interesting case. I’m going by memory here so again, do your own
research. She is in Law School and she plans to practice law in Hawaii when we
return. There are three routes to qualify for the BAR exam there if I remember
right:
1) Graduate from a
U.S. accredited law school
2) Hold a BAR license from another state
3) Have a foreign degree (and) 5 years of practice in the
foreign country.
So in this case she has two options. She can move to a state
with a more favorable examination requirement and test there prior to testing
to Hawaii (or) she can practice here for 5 years first. If I was in law school,
option 2 would not be an option, because Philippines citizenship is a BAR
requirement here.
Now I will say that in my experience the education
facilities are quite different than the west. Don’t be surprised if you find
yourself sitting on a plastic chair in an open air classroom, and eating adobo
every day in the lunch room. My wife and I will both have some mini hurdles to
navigate, but on the flip side, our tuition and living expenses are dirt cheap
compared to Hawaii. Personally, I’m more than happy to deal with a few work
arounds, if that means avoiding tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.
Plus…really…the Philippines is kind of a fun place to kick around.
"Get your learn on!"
