Studying and living in Australia

Our 18 year old has secured admission in USA. We were set that he would be heading to the university in Los Angeles. Then the pandemic happened and we shuddered seeing how badly it has been handled in USA and how ill-informed president was pushing the campus to be opened. We got worried and decided to explore if he sould study in Australia. This is the story of the three month we spend researching Australian education and life and how finally we decided that studying in USA still made sense. We researched online and spoke with few people we knew in Australia. We spoke with recruiment consultants. We spoke with the colleagues of one our frined who has head office in Sydney. We contacted current students there in Linkedin and spoke with them. We wanted to be convinced that he would be able to go to UK/USA top universities for master or if he wished, work in Australia and later go got MBA in one of the top universities in USA. Here's what we found and reasons why we decided to go for the college in USA only. 1. Australia is a beautiful country. The cost of living is high but there is minimum wages guaranteed and its so good that even in the junior level one can have good job. 2. Any of the colleges in G8 are good in general. We zeroed on to ANU, University of Sydney and Unileversity of Melbourne. We later rulled out University of Melbourne as the computer science course is of 3 years and we didnt find confidence that it will be honoured in USA or UK. 2. Our son has done IB and got very good scores. Hence, we applied to ANU and Sydney University and got admission to both. He got admission to double majors which takes 5 years. 3. After graduation the jobs for international students didnt look very plentiful. Mostly realised that they get low level jobs and and none of the top companied in the top 10% of the personnel saw any Asian. Seems the glass ceiling is very real and it would be very difficult to make a career out in Australia for a international student. Hence, if one is average student, looking for a good education and happy with lower to middle level job for life, Asutralia seemed like a great place. 4. It was bit surprising that it seemed that those graduating out from ANU, get jobs mostly in Canbera, those graduating from Sydney get jobs in Sydney and so on. 5. The classes in Asutralia startes after 6-7 months from the time the students in India complete their 12th stadard tests/IB Diploma. Also, they are likely to pass out in Jan of the year where as masterin USA starts in Sept of the same year. Hence, these 9months, the students either have to do some part time jobs or need to sit out. Hence, in total about 1.5years will be wasted if one studies in Asutralia after completion of 1B/12th standard. This is very significant. So, it would take 8years for our son to complete masters in USA where as in USA if one goes for undergratuation, can complete the masters in 5 years. So, the decision was really do we want our son to hit the job market in 5 years in USA after doing masters there or after 8 years in USA after doing bachelors in Australia. 6. The job market is Australia is relatively very small. The job market in USA inspite of everything is very vast. 7. US education offers many choices interms of what one wishes to study. One can do major in engineering while doing minor in music or arts. OR even just do major and complete the degree requirment by doing the required number of classes from a vast number of courses available. 8. The cost of under graduate studies in USA is very high. The cost of undergraduate studies in Australia is about 20-30% cheaper and further if one does 20hrs of work there that is allowed, one can easily earn about $ 400 a week which will go a long way to reduce the cost burden. 9. We looked at hard to understand if from the top schools in India, anyone goes to study in Australia, found now. We spent about 3 months agonising and finally decided that it may be best to pursue undergraduate studies in USA only. We pray to God for blessing so everything works out fine. It is a big decision in one's life. Hence, if you would want any further informationrs or wish to discuss with us, would be very glad to help.