José Ricardo Rodríguez Fajardo is the lucky winner of the QS Connect Masters Scholarship in 2018.

The scholarship, worth US$2,000, is awarded every year exclusively to a student who has taken part in the Connect Masters scheme. Connect Masters is a free service which is part of the QS World Grad School Tour, and allows prospective postgraduates to meet face-to-face with university representatives from around the world in order to professionally discuss their next steps for their career and studies.

José Ricardo, who is from Bogotá, Colombia, is set to further his interest in renewable energy by pursuing a Masters in Electrical Engineering at George Washington University. Having gained his bachelor’s degree from Universidad de Los Andes and worked at one of Colombia’s top engineering and consulting firms, he has decided to study a master’s degree to further his knowledge in the field of energy, having realized that “there was so much I still don’t know and so many opportunities for optimization in the energy field.”

He’s aiming to help the environment to the best of his ability and believes his master’s degree will enable him to learn many specialized topics in his field, while studying abroad will allow him to gain new perspectives on his subject to what he’s found in Colombia, which he says is very focused on hydroelectric power. He also believes that studying abroad will enable him to perhaps work in an alternative energy field after graduation, as well as giving him new ideas for solutions to daily problems in his current field.

José Ricardo found that attending the QS Connect Masters event helped him make his choice, making a complicated process seem much simpler – he says “QS was the instrument that made it all possible; first it gathered a group of top universities from around the world, taking away the problem of searching for the universities by myself. And second, through the personalized meetings I realized the whole process, even if long, was actually not as hard as it seemed.”

He states that being awarded the QS Connect Masters Scholarship has “made it possible for me to cover the initial costs, and enabled me to advance in the admission process without worrying too much. Scholarships are always a huge help, especially for students from countries where the local currency isn’t as strong as the currency in their study destination.”

Advice for other applicants

So what advice would José Ricardo give to others who are looking for a scholarship?

“Don’t get discouraged, even if the process is tough. All it takes is a single person to believe in you, and you will find them if you keep searching. Be consistent and manage your efforts - huge efforts once in a while won’t be very successful, so it’s much better to start several months before your desired course’s start date and spend just an hour searching daily until you find what you are looking for. Also, when selecting a university look for a place where you want to be in, some place where they really care about students, and where you will be able to get a good return for your investment.”

Sponsored by the City of Buenos Aires

Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world, and fluency in a second language can make your CV stand out from the crowd, but what’s the secret to picking up a new one quickly and effectively?

For starters, language immersion combined with good language acquisition habits like changing your devices to Spanish or attending a language class several times a week can be really effective, but they aren’t the only techniques. If you’re looking to study abroad for a semester or a full degree in a Spanish-speaking country like Argentina, here are our top tips to arrive back home completely fluent in Spanish.

Drill the 100 most commonly used words before you leave

A good way of building up your confidence and vocabulary is to learn cognates, words that sound or look the same or similar in different languages - for example vocabulary vs vocabulario in Spanish. You’ll be shocked by how much you already know.

In addition to these more straightforward words, drill the 100 most commonly used words in Spanish until you can remember each one without effort. You could print out a list of words and try to recite each one, or test yourself using flashcards. By learning these, you’ll be able to form basic sentences.

It’s worth noting before you go that not all Spanish speaking countries speak the same dialect. In Buenos Aires for instance, people speak  ''español rioplatense'', which sounds very rhythmic, a bit like Italian. Speakers of this dialect would say ''vos'' instead of “tu”, and the ‘z’ sound common in other Spanish dialects is more of an ‘s’ sound.

Live with Spanish speakers rather than expats

One of the language-learning pitfalls of the study abroad experience is not spending enough time with native speakers.

It can be tempting to hang out exclusively with other exchange students abroad, but the danger is that your lingua franca might end up being English.

If you can, living with Spanish-speakers in a flatshare or with a host family is a great way to form close bonds and become fully immersed in the language even while at home.

So, whether it’s debriefing the latest Star Wars sequel in Spanish (i.e. La guerra de las galaxias) or sampling local specialties at the dinner table, living with native speakers can be a great way of learning about the culture and become fluent more quickly.

Take a Spanish language class while living abroad

Language immersion isn’t enough - you also need to understand the complexities and nuances of Spanish grammar to speak it fluently.

The good news is that there are 28 Spanish-language institutes in Buenos Aires that offer language classes to speakers of all abilities.

Many universities in Spanish-speaking countries also offer help with this. In Buenos Aires, for example, the best Spanish-speaking city in the QS Best Student Cities 2018 ranking, most universities will offer some kind of language learning program to international students, either for free or a small fee.

For example, the Universidad de San Andres offers a four-week intensive language learning course, which consists of four hours of Spanish classes every day.

Similarly, the Universidad Torcuato di Tella offers a 15-week Spanish language course for international students that’s also supplemented by lectures conducted in English on Argentine history and culture.

Practice your Spanish outside the classroom

Learning Spanish in bars is now a thing in Buenos Aires. If you’d like to explore the nightlife while practicing your Spanish, conversation clubs are a great way to make friends and grow out of your comfort zone. There’s usually one every evening of the week.

Mate Conversation Club, for example, involves meeting up with native speakers and learners, while drinking mate (an Argentine infusion). Having an asado (a barbecue) is an option too, or even a few drinks!

Mundolingo, another conversation club in Argentina’s capital, has a similar concept, and is hosted at various bars in the city depending on the day. Just so you know, Buenos Aires is city home to 7,000 bars and restaurants.

Spanglish, meanwhile, is speed dating but for language learning. You are paired with a native Spanish speaker and take turns speaking in Spanish and English, then swap conversation partners.  

Here are a few words to get you started: bajón (drunk snacks), boliche (nightclub), bondi o colectivo (bus), morfi (food).

Ditch your Netflix binges for art, film, books and TV in Spanish

It can be tempting to turn your bedroom into an all-English, all the time bunker, with episodes of Friends streaming constantly while you eat your favorite snacks from home, but a little Spanish after-hours never hurt anybody.

There’s a vast range of series and telenovelas available to stream on YouTube in Spanish for free, but you could also just watch TV in Spanish and see how much you pick up.

If you’re interested, Argentine cinema has been in the spotlight a lot recently, with a few actors and directors snapping up awards and prizes for their work. The Official Story (1985) and the Secret In Their Eyes (2009) were the first Latin American films to win Academy Awards and are both worth checking out. The black comedy Wild Tales (2014), composed of six standalone films about violence and revenge, was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Don’t forget to read in Spanish either. Depending on your level, you could start with a children’s picture book or BBC Mundo. If you’re feeling particularly confident, why not have a go at reading the stream of consciousness novel Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar or the book of short stories Ficciones by the writer Jorge Luis Borges?

Use technology and your electronic devices wisely

There’s no point in living with a host family or Spanish speakers if your smartphone and laptop are in English.

Changing the language on social media sites and your devices can be such a useful language learning tool - its good practice and will get you in the habit of using common words every day.

If you’ve changed your Smartphone to Spanish, you should download Readlang, an excellent language learning app which lets you turn any words you are unfamiliar with while browsing the web into flashcards so you can practice them later.

So what are you waiting for?

If you’re looking for a job or internship during your studies or after graduation, it can be difficult to know where to look.

If you’ve searched through job boards and either applied for every role you’re interested in or just yet found anything that catches your eye, where should you look next?

Luckily, there are plenty of options available to you, so read through our list of five alternatives to job boards, and you’re sure to find the perfect job for you...

Sign up to a local recruitment agency

The purpose of a recruitment agency is to sign you up to a designated recruitment consultant, who acts as a middle man between employers looking for staff and candidates look for jobs, and there are likely to be a number of them in your area.

Once you’ve registered your details and perfected your CV, they will keep an eye out for any job roles on their database that suit you. They’ll then send your CV off to the employer and will get in touch with you to organize an interview should you be successful. Signing up to a recruiter is a great way of looking for work if you’re just starting out, and will also teach you to tailor your CV to different roles in the future.

Ask around

This is especially useful if you are looking for work in your local town, where job advertisements may be placed in the windows of offices, bars, businesses and shops.

Whilst a lot of job applications have to be filled out online, some still require a CV, and it’s important to remember that the same rules of job applications apply wherever you’re applying. Remember to tailor your CV to each role, even if it seems easier to send the same version out to every business you find – putting in more effort will go a long way.

Speak to a careers advisor

Your university is likely to have a careers center of some kind, which can give you advice on what to do next after you’ve completed your degree, or how to put together an effective CV or cover letter. They will also be able to help you find job and internships that are available. Have a look on their website or visit them in person, and you’re sure to find something relevant to your field.

Use LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a very useful tool for searching for jobs, enabling you to advertise your skills to potential employers, and lets you display all of your skills, work experience and education in one place, like a digital CV.

There are two ways that LinkedIn makes it easy to find job roles. Firstly, recruiters will often post their job vacancies to the site, meaning you can see what roles certain employers are offering and get in touch with them should you find yourself interested in a position. Another way is that you can search for jobs on the site, filtering by title and location to narrow down your search to help you find a job vacancy that best suits you. There is also an ‘easy apply’ function available with some positions, meaning you don’t have to send over individual CVs and covering letters to separate employers.

Search online

It may seem obvious, but a simple Google search is an extremely effective way to look for a job in today’s market. By typing in your desired title and location, you will be directed to all the recruitment websites, job specifications and company adverts that fit your description, allowing you to search through and find one that best suits you. This can be the most time consuming of the five methods here, but the time taken will be well worth it when you finally find your dream job.

When you’re looking for work, it can be easy to feel like you’ve exhausted all the avenues available to you, but there are plenty more ways of finding work than just by looking at job boards. Follow these steps and you’re sure to find yourself hired soon.

Jess Howard writes for Inspiring Interns, which specializes in finding candidates their perfect graduate jobs. To browse our internships London listings, visit our website.

Sponsored by HEC Paris

While European countries continue to grapple with one of the largest refugee crises in modern history, 20 refugees in Paris have spent an intensive twelve weeks at HEC Paris, one of the top-ranking business schools in France.

Participants spent a full term on the school’s beautiful leafy campus in Jouy-en-Josas in the Paris suburbs, where they received 20 hours a week of intensive language training in French and English.

Each participant was also paired with a student buddy and alumni mentor to give them the tools and business lingo they will need to bounce back and revive their career prospects.

Why this matters

The idea of sending refugees to elite business schools like HEC Paris to revive their career prospects was born during a chance encounter in 2015 between two business students: Théo Scubla et Eymeric Guinet, and Alexandre Lederman, the founder of the French charity Les Restos du Coeur.

Speaking to 20 Minutes, Théo Sculpa, who went on to co-found Wintegreat - the charity which launched this initiative - said: “So much talent is wasted. Some people perceive refugees as a problem. We want to give them a chance. “

Refugee students and professionals who were forced to quit their studies or career back home often don’t have the language skills they need to enter the workforce in their new country of residence. This new initiative promises to rehabilitate participants and give them sufficient command of the French language to pursue their professional aspirations in France, while also organizing company visits and networking sessions with prospective employers to help refugees build a network of contacts.

Eloïc Peyrache, Associate Dean for HEC MSc in Management Program, said: "Businesses have an important role to play in reducing inequalities and improving social development in a country.

“I am particularly pleased and proud of the dynamism of our students, teachers and staff who are behind this great initiative.”

***

About HEC Paris

Founded in 1881 by the Parisian chamber of commerce, HEC Paris is home to 108 teaching researchers, 4,500 students, and 8,000 professionals in education.

HEC Paris offers a unique range of courses in business and management, including the Grande Ecole program, a range of specialized master’s programs, an MSc, an MBA, an executive MBA, PhDs and technical courses, as well as a summer school.

In the new edition of the QS Top 50 Under 50, released this week, Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was once again ranked as the the world’s top university under 50 years old, closely followed by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

In general, dynamic young Asian universities dominate the top tier of the QS Top 50 Under 50, which celebrates the world’s leading institutions under 50 years old. NTU and HKUST are joined in the top five by two more Asian universities: South Korea’s KAIST at third, and the City University of Hong Kong at fifth.

While Nanyang Technological University has now led the Top 50 Under 50 for five consecutive years, HKUST has previously claimed the top spot, and the two remain closely matched.

Here’s a closer look at how these two ambitious Asian universities compare…

 *Based on the broad subject areas of the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2018.

QS World University Rankings® 2019

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) continues to outrank Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in the QS World University Rankings® and the QS Top 50 Under 50, with both top Asian universities down slightly on last year.

When taking a closer look, both institutions perform well in the indicators used to compile the rankings, with each university ranked in the top 300 for each one. NTU achieves higher scores for its reputations among academics and graduate employers, gaining a wider lead on the employer reputation indicator.

For research impact, HKUST is the leader of the two, with NTU ranked 87^th. This is assessed by counting the number of research citations published per faculty member at the university. However, when assessing the ratio of academic staff members to students, NTU has a clear lead – ranked more than 160 places ahead of HKUST at 79^th.

Finally, looking at the level of international diversity on each campus, both young universities get high scores, with HKUST in the lead both for its percentage of international faculty members and international students – however, NTU still features in the global top 150 for both indicators.

Subject strengths

If you’re still trying to decide between NTU and HKUST, a look at the QS World University Rankings by Subject can help narrow down each university’s individual subject strengths. NTU is the leader for four out of the five broad subject areas included in the rankings, ranking only five places behind HKUST for social sciences & management, at 29^th to HKUST’s 24^th.

The table below lets you see how NTU and HKUST directly compare for each discipline.

Location

Both these rival Asian universities are in huge, bustling cities, both of which are considered expensive to live in but offer great economic prosperity and job opportunities. NTU is found in the West Region of Singapore, adjacent to the town of Jurong West, and boasts the largest university campus in the city at 490 acres. HKUST meanwhile is set in the attractive Clear Water Bay area on a 150-acre campus less than 30 minutes’ drive from central Hong Kong (SAR).

Looking at the QS Best Student Cities 2018, Hong Kong has a slight lead, ranked 12^th while Singapore is ranked 15^th. When you consider the indicators used to compile the rankings, Singapore beats Hong Kong for desirability and employer activity, whereas Hong Kong achieves a much higher score for affordability (and a slightly stronger score for ‘student view’).

Rent in Hong Kong is often considered extortionate but traveling and eating out can be done at a low cost. Singapore was also ranked as the world’s most expensive city in The Economist's Worldwide Cost of Living Survey 2018. This might sound alarming, but if you take tuition fees into account, both Singapore and Hong Kong are still more affordable than other popular study destinations. Both are also highly multicultural, with Hong Kong branded as "Asia's World City", so you should adapt easily to living here no matter where you’re from originally.

Student community

NTU has around 31,800 students, of which 8,074 are postgraduates, while HKUST is much smaller, with less than half the number of students NTU has at approximately 14,807 students (roughly two-thirds of whom are undergraduates). There’s no data for the number of international students at NTU, but at HKUST there were 5,060 as of September 2017, which is 34 percent of the total number, and the university also receives a stronger score than NTU for its percentage of international students.

Tuition fees

Tuition fees at both NTU and HKUST vary depending on your study level, subject and other factors – at NTU, fees are affected by whether students are in receipt of the MOE Tuition Grant. These grants, offered by the Ministry of Education, can help both domestic and international students cover a significant amount of their tuition costs, in exchange for agreeing to work for a Singaporean company for at least three years after graduating (or five or six years for medicine and dentistry graduates). The table below gives you an idea of how the most recent figures for tuition fees at each university compare.

Financial aid

NTU and HKUST each offer a range of financial aid options to help students fund their studies. For example, at NTU, loans, bursaries and scholarships are available, and the university has a calculator which students can use to determine their annual financial need. Scholarships offered by NTU include the Nanyang Scholarship for outstanding undergraduate students of any nationality, the Nanyang President's Graduate Scholarship, which seeks to encourage graduates to study a PhD at NTU, and the NTU Research Scholarship for prospective local or international PhD students.

Meanwhile, HKUST’s Scholarships and Financial Aid Office (SFAO) should be students’ main port of call in searching for financial assistance at the university, with a range of scholarships, bursaries and loans available. Students can use the university’s scholarship search tool to find scholarship options relating to their subject and study level, with 145 available at the time of writing. Students could also research their eligibility for a HKSAR Government Scholarship – 86 of these were awarded in the 2016/17 academic year. PhD students could apply for the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS).

Want more content like this? Register for free site membership to get regular updates and your own personal content feed.

This article was originally published in September 2014. It was last updated in June 2018 to incorporate the latest ranking results.