After almost a year of language training, Zhang Ran, 18, is finally a freshman in Marlborough Boys' College, New Zealand. His parents sent him overseas after he graduated from a Beijing high school.
His major is marketing but he says after three months of study that, he still has no idea what marketing is and has not made any plans for when he graduates.
"My parents want me to go back to China after I finish college, but I am not sure what I can do then," he said.
Decide on a career and your life before you decide to go abroad, say consultants from Tianjin Far-Reaching Immigration and Investment Consulting Company.
To go abroad and to study abroad are two different concepts. If you take the first as the final goal and the latter as a means to achieve it, you will very quickly lose your direction.
Experts suggest that students need to be more aware of what they really want. Zhang Ran is just one example of how going abroad can be a waste of time if you do not even know what to do with your future.
Top tips from the consultants:
Do not study abroad just because parents ask you to do so.
Do not feel you have to go abroad just because fellow students are doing so.
Do not ruin your chances of getting into a top university by missing out on work experience in China.
(China Daily January 11, 2003)
