Now a more serious comment: as someone who already has their undergraduate degree, how could I best go about going back to school to take these courses in a classroom setting? Particularly, how could I do so on a sensible budget?
There are some countries which offer free higher education, to foreign students as well as natives (if you get accepted into the program). E.g. although there has been pressure to introduce tuition fees to foreign students, and some universities have experimented with this, Finnish universities generally remain free. Undergraduate courses are mostly taught in Finnish, but the Master’s level courses of many degree programs (such as my university’s computer science program) are taught predominantly in English.
Of course, this requires a willingness to move to a foreign country.
This listing looks like largely undergraduate courses, and unfortunately I don’t speak Finnish! Though in the US, some Master’s programs are set up to accept students who want to do something different than what they did in undergrad, I have no idea if this applies to Finnish universities at all. And honestly Finland sounds like a wonderful country, would not mind moving there except maybe because of the cold.
Yeah, it is true that Finnish universities do generally require your Master’s to be pretty similar than your undergrad—for example, looking at the admission criteria document from my faculty’s international admission pages (it’s my understanding that other universities have similar policies), it says that
Following receipt of a reasoned application, the admissions board may grant the right to pursue the Master of Science degree without an entrance examination to an applicant who has completed an applicable Bachelor’s degree with good grades. In such cases, the applicant must meet the Finnish, Swedish or English language requirements, and the content and scope of the completed degree must be correspond sufficiently to the Bachelor of Science degree in the same discipline at the Faculty of Science. Admission will be based on the amount, quality and grades of the completed studies as well as on the letter of motivation.
On the other hand, it does also say that
If the content of a successful applicant’s Bachelor’s degree does not correspond sufficiently to the Faculty requirements for the Bachelor of Science degree in the relevant major subject, the applicant may have to complete up to 60 credits of supplementary major subject, minor subject and language studies before beginning to pursue advanced studies for the Master’s degree.
But I don’t know how similar the previous degree has to be in order for them to say “okay, but you have to complete extra courses” instead of rejecting the application outright.
It’s an interesting idea, and I may test it. Not really what I was looking for, though. The benefits of actual classroom courses I’m thinking about here include instructor feedback and the ability to put something on your resume. So I’m hoping for advice on certificate programs, etc.
Now a more serious comment: as someone who already has their undergraduate degree, how could I best go about going back to school to take these courses in a classroom setting? Particularly, how could I do so on a sensible budget?
There are some countries which offer free higher education, to foreign students as well as natives (if you get accepted into the program). E.g. although there has been pressure to introduce tuition fees to foreign students, and some universities have experimented with this, Finnish universities generally remain free. Undergraduate courses are mostly taught in Finnish, but the Master’s level courses of many degree programs (such as my university’s computer science program) are taught predominantly in English.
Of course, this requires a willingness to move to a foreign country.
This listing looks like largely undergraduate courses, and unfortunately I don’t speak Finnish! Though in the US, some Master’s programs are set up to accept students who want to do something different than what they did in undergrad, I have no idea if this applies to Finnish universities at all. And honestly Finland sounds like a wonderful country, would not mind moving there except maybe because of the cold.
Yeah, it is true that Finnish universities do generally require your Master’s to be pretty similar than your undergrad—for example, looking at the admission criteria document from my faculty’s international admission pages (it’s my understanding that other universities have similar policies), it says that
On the other hand, it does also say that
But I don’t know how similar the previous degree has to be in order for them to say “okay, but you have to complete extra courses” instead of rejecting the application outright.
How do you like the look of my lecture note freerider self-study plan? (Note: largely untested.)
It’s an interesting idea, and I may test it. Not really what I was looking for, though. The benefits of actual classroom courses I’m thinking about here include instructor feedback and the ability to put something on your resume. So I’m hoping for advice on certificate programs, etc.