UK vs Netherlands for Masters Degree- HELP.

outnumbered

Hi all,

I am interested in pursuing a career in Public Health/Epidemiology and I just need some advice on where to study and why etc.

I have obviously seen the master degrees available in the UK (KCL, UCL, ICL, LSHTM, UoL) and while they seem very very appealing, they are the guts of 15,000 euro. Living in London comfortably for the year would be another 10,000 at least, I imagine. So that's a whopping 25,000 euro for a very good masters.

I have always been interested in studying abroad, (I am not including the UK in this) and was focusing mainly on the Netherlands. For example, in Gronigen, they have a really interesting masters in epidemiology. It's 2 years in length and 1,500 /year. So that's 3,000 euro and about 5000 living expenses each year, giving a grand total of 13,000-15,000 euro for a two year masters.

So I am going to put the pros/cons that i see:

Finance: Savings of 10,000 euro by going to Netherlands

Time: Saving a year by going to the UK.

Quality: UK universities are very reputable and I haven't heard much about the Netherlands ones. Ranking wise, they are up there in the top 100. I am not sure if that's a reliable assessment, however. My main goal is to work in the likes of WHO and i know that the London School of Hygiene has good links with WHO. I am not sure of such links with the Netherlands.

OK, so my predicament: What do I do?

The way I see is I can either:
1) Take a year out and be able to afford the UK fees.
2) Get a loan and go to the UK.
3) Go to the Netherlands straight after my undergrad and finance it on a weekly basis (I've heard that they hire many english speaking students in call centres which I have good experience in and also would be able to work as it's much less fast paced compared to the UK masters (2 vs 1 year)).

If it helps, I hope to do a PhD after my masters and hopefully that will be back in the UK.

I hope someone can help me with this decision.

Absolute Zero

As someone who has studied in the UK (Glasgow uni) and Netherlands (Utrecht), I might be able to offer some tips.

I was contemplating doing my MSc in Utrecht as well, what turned me off it was the whole two year thing. The universities in the Netherlands would be ranked well, the best being Leiden,Amsterdam and Utrecht. However the UK colleges would be far ahead of them especially the ones you linked like UCL but of course living in London is exspensive , but would be an amazing experience non the less.

When looking at the Netherlands courses, the second year is often devoted to a internship and an Msc project. The thing to take into account here is do you need second year to do these things? Would you prefer t. o go out and find a job yourself and start fully into it by year 2 which would happen in the UK, as technically it would be your third year before you start working if you went to Netherlands (already having 6 months of an internship). Personally I would of had enough after year 1 at this level, I would just be mad if I had to go back after the summer holidays to start another year of a master. In my opinion 1 year is more than enough.

Your course would be in English at Groningen as the Dutch like to attract many international students to their universities. Its easy to live in the Netherlands as well, the weather is decent, the ground is flat, the transport is good. You would probably meet more friends in the UK however as you would most likely have more in common with them along with the same language. I believe that the UK colleges also have a much better international reputation, this is quite obvious as the amount of Asian students here is astronomical, don't underestimate the effect this will have 10-20 years in the future as the next generation of leaders of China etc are being educated en masse in the UK colleges and having a degree from these institutions could come in quite handy.

Costs - Yes the UK is costlier as the sterling is stronger than the Euro. NL is also not a cheap country so factor that in for 2 years of college. As you say the London school has good links with the WHO, and I would hazard a guess that the universities of the Netherlands would not have the same links as these places in London. Also just because the NL course is 2 years are you sure its less fast paced? Ok year 1 is all teaching classes so this maybe similar to a year 4 of your undergraduate... At the end of the day in my own opinion I prefer to get it done in one year whilst my enthusiasm remains high.