Ask HN: Help me solve a dilemma, study in the US or take a job in the EU?
I'm 20M from South Asia (not India). Got a near full-tuition scholarship from a T200 public university to study undergrad in the US. Total costs would come out to about $20k USD/year according to the university. (Somewhat common scholarship, and would still need help from family to cover the complete costs)
I have about a year of experience under my belt and recently joined a non-tech-focused startup in Brlin for work under the condition that I'll move there soon. And, I'm really confused on which way to go. I do not have a qualification yet, moving to a place where everyone has a Masters and I don't speak the language feels like it'd be a massive footgun in case I get laid off or if the startup has to liquidate.
The traditional wisdom that I'd read repeatedly until last year was job experience triumphs college and the opportunity cost is not worth it which is why I took the job, but I'm having second thoughts. Does that also apply to Europe?
Would you say this is still the case considering the events of last year? Does the compensation and tax differential across the pond make the investment worth it to join the US labor pool down the line?
I would like to be close to home and Europe would be more amenable to frequent travel, but I've read many European developers lament how they could effectively retire and return after working for just a few years if they could work in the states, how realistic is that?
Objectively which do you think will be the better option? The analysis paralysis is crushing me and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
106 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] threadUS: + once you finish education, and if you start employment in tech sector, you get to make more money(I’d even dare to say more than 2x, considering taxes, geography etc).
+ for the tech sector, US is where the hotness is. More opportunities, fuel for ambition.
+ while single and young, US can get you a lot of disposable income(read - less likely to get sick footing a huge medical bill, or avoid expensive child care, or school fees of children)
+ language. You don’t need to spend your time learning a new language that you may or may not use in the long term.
- (cons)
- politics (depends on personal views of course. Ask yourself if you can bear a society in which Trump wins the elections)
- the odd chance that you get in an accident or get sick with a weird/expensive disease, you’re screwed.
- personal opinion - food, lifestyle, and quality of life is comparatively poorer in the US on average than in EU. Read obesity, fatty, ultra-processed and sugary foods.
- Geography - farther to South Asia than Europe.
- Guns (depends on your views)
EU:
+ Safer, more consciously biased towards better quality of life. More public transport, walking cities, higher quality super markets, and produce etc.
+ politics (left leaning compared to the US on average)
+ traveling and cultural diversity - as in you can travel across the continent as even weekend trips and experience rich and diverse cultures - Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Poland, Netherlands, Scandinavia, France - so many experiences to be had.
+ in the long term, you don’t need to be anxious about falling sick, losing your job, education for your children etc. Social system has your back for all the taxes you pay.
+ Easier and probably cheaper to travel to South Asia often.
+ You get real holiday(atleast. 4 weeks or upto 6 weeks per year) to travel and live your life while young instead of bunkering to earn money.
- you definitely won’t make as much as you would have in the US.
- language. Depends on where in Europe you go, you may need to spend considerable amount of time learning the language. It could be a fun experience depending on your attitude, but it is time nevertheless.
- lowered ambition. A personal opinion. Having living equal time at both US and EU, I’ve come to conclude that EU encourages stability and playing it safe while US encourages ambitious attitudes and gets the best out of you. It depends on what you are looking for, and what you enjoy.
Hope it helped atleast a little and didn’t add more dots to your analysis paralysis.
To tip the scales, I live in the EU.
Yes, I will NOT generalize to say all Americans are obese. I merely went by the stats that says more and more are.
I’ve had the American college town experience (college town South Carolina) and I cherish those times. I rode through a scholarship and had a worry free time to actually learn, and have fun while at it. But, I know many of my peers who had to pay USD tuition from their home country cash, and it was incredibly hard for them. Again, it depends…
- Right wing is on rise in many European countries. Dutch recently elected one such government. Germany's right wing party has plans to deport all non white, non German immigrants irrespecrtive of whether they are legal/illegal. They are polling quite high.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/10/politicians-fr...
- Spain/Italy both have right wing governments in power.
Few other cons about most of European countries:
- No matter what you will always be treated like a foreigner. Hence feeling of higher isolation.
- European population is getting old. OP will be working for quite a long time for a very low pension. US employers provide things like 401K and has much robust pension system.
Traveling in Europe for a South Asian also isn't necessarily easy either. The wait times for getting a Schengen visa are pretty ridiculous right now. They are also much stricter about granting the visas these days than they used to (source: colleagues who've had months-long waiting times for visa appointments, and getting denied multiple times).
Although it's unclear whether "joined a startup" means as co-founder, CxO, or some gig, might somewhat matter here.
As for "job experience triumphs college", for 90% of (even IT / dev) jobs that sounds like a ridiculous notion to me (the usually personally-interesting cutting-edge stuff is going to be both outside a job and most undergrad curriculums), regardless of how much edu quality may or may not have gone downhill in recent years. Sure, the big SV founder legends of yesteryear were mostly college drop-outs, but they weren't South Asians with a scholarship either. If their dropping-out had not paid off, they knew they could just return a few years later.
This stuff is so worth it. Even if there isn't much "college/campus life". My 3 years BSc. in the UK was pretty socially "isolated" except for a GF and her friend circle, but it was still totally worth it, slightly exotic and adventurous-feeling (20 years ago by now tho =) and had that college-town vibe I'd never known before, and with the workloads they had for students, I had a LOT of time to my own doings (whether freelancing or totally hobbyist — or in your case maybe, that startup or another, they come and go).
As for that Berlin non-tech startup? What are they even about, that might matter a bit here. There's an endless stream of rose-colored ventures cropping up and folding again all the time in Berlin (and other such "wanna-be startup capital of (insert county/country/continent)" cities), you know. I'd tell them of your unique opportunity and offer to continue remote + part-time for starters. Both are now much more culturally / business-wise acceptable, broadly, than ever before. If that's not good enough for them, split, else you can over time choose to "phase it down" or re-engage more-intensely as you like and time permits.
Also, gloom and doom (cultural-mood-and-zeitgeist-wise) once more proliferate and dominate on this old continent but especially this country currently (unlike say during most of the previous decade), but with that outlook direction Germany or east-of-it is always going to be a little extra-grim as a place-to-live on this continent IMO. I mean, for moving here.. anyone is welcome to, as far as I care, if that's their goal or need, but given the choice, I have a real hard time advertising it vs. countries / cultures like France, Italia, Spain, Portugal, even Britain.. That's a personal subjective bias tho =)
Understand you will die one day. Not as a concept. But as the truth.
Keywords doesn't matter. Resume doesn't matter.
Do what you really want to do.
Don't think too much about future.
You are not in control of it.
Don't analyse too much. It's a scam by your egoic mind.
Just do what do you want to do.
Where will you choose to go if you don't survive 1 more year? Go there.
"You might die, you're not in control of the future, do what you want"
Neat list of platitudes, not really helpful here.
If you live every day like it’s your last you’re going to be wrong a lot.
You’re not in complete control of your future but if you ignore the effects of your decisions today, you’re doing your future self a big disservice.
IMHO, after you graduate, you will have more experience (both technical and non-technical) and be able to find better jobs. And there will always be startups looking for good engineers....
> got yourself some sort of very disputed scholarship
fwiw, it was a fairly common one that I got solely based on SAT/GPA
The work visa system in the US seems to create this stress because there's no automatic transition between states. You get a fixed, short period of unlimited work after graduating but then you need a job to sponsor you, which will most likely be as a "nonimmigrant" that has to be renewed and updated when you change jobs. And that never converts to a green card on its own, the employer has to start over with a new process and prove that no US workers are available to do the job.
In other countries (not sure about Europe), it's more like you get a work visa the first time, you keep working for 5-7 years, then you automatically get a permanent residence and can change jobs freely (or retire, study, etc.).
You do have a valid concern about what happens if you job ends, but I think in that case a good backup plan is just to apply for schools in Europe. Not sure how the timing would work out with admission cycles or how strict they are about how long you can stay before finding a new job/switching to student though.
You could even see if the US university would be willing to defer your admission for a year to do a "gap year" of work experience? That's kinda sort of a thing in the US, so it's worth asking.
Dunno if that'll persist by the time I graduate or not. I'm considering switching my major to Electrical Engineering if the university allows in hopes of keeping more doors open.
As for the gap year, this particular university denied it, besides I'm 20 and have been out of school for more than a year already, that plus moving to another country thus loosening my ties to my home country feels like it'd seriously jeopardize my visa application as well in a year.
One huge advantage is being bilingual - you may be able to play that up and get something out of it, especially as more and more companies have overseas operations.
There's an off chance you might learn something that you might not have otherwise if you take the college approach, however I'm not sure it's worth the cost.
So main thing to watch out for US is to have a stable path forward that does not kick you out in your mid to late twenties making you start from scratch from elsewhere.
US immigration policy it seems is pretty restrictive at the moment [0]
And as for German language, it is difficult in some ways but easier in some. Learning a language certainly takes time but it is not something that has not ever done by any human.
Good luck!
[0]. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2023-03/2023-bier-...
But it's still the better deal. Europe should be your plan B.
Either you really learn a lot in your current Berlin company so that other companies will ignore your education or you will have problems.
And 20 is nothing just because it feels nice to earn money, long term it is much riskier.
US public universities give scholarships to non citizens?
But public universities take tax dollars and should be accountable to taxpayers. Given how high tuition has become, I doubt most taxpayers would support academic scholarships for non citizens.
It’s kind of like universities spending hundreds of millions of dollars on fitness or sports centers. The funding doesn’t make sense on paper, but students and alumni who donate money want schools to have them anyway.
I think the taxpayers would be pleased to take the $20k I'm spending there relative to the $12k or so that's spent on my scholarship?
I'd never go back to change getting the degree - it's a great stepping stone in the professional world, opens doors and interviews, you can go back to industry any time later on. However the college is much "easier" when you are 20 - easier to fit in, make friends etc. With life, responsibilities will pile up and there can and will be much more friction to decide and get back to college later on.
College then led to masters (in ML) and that has become and still is a technical basis of all my professional career, so I have a deepest gratitude for all of these educational opportunities.
If lifestyle and proximity to South Asia is important, take the Europe option. German work culture has a good work-life balance. Flying back home will be cheaper and faster.
The EU, in spite of having more hot wars nearby geographically, is more stable right now.
If you want to just chill and not have high highs but just let the govt take care of you, go to Europe.
to flip it on it's head. If you get ill or injured in the us you could be more than the $20K in debt for hospital bills. Whereas Europe has healthcare that will not take away everything you have. Also there is the fact that America is extremely anti-immigration at the moment.
My experience is limited to living in Spain and Sweden, but neither have had issues with having medical personal available for me when needed, even for relatively minor issues. I'm sure it differs a lot across the continent.
If you're on a visa and you lose your job and thus your health insurance, you're probably going back to your home country anyways. I wouldn't worry about medical debt then, they can't pursue you across international lines. Send the hospital AP department an email saying 'hi I'm no longer in the US, I'm in HomeCountry for the foreseeable future' and they're just going to write off the debt and call it a day. Medical debts don't cross national borders
In what way? Compared to which countries? If OP is coming to the USA for school, I don't think this is a concern esp in the short term.
If so, you could take on the German job for a year with plans to move to the US after that. Gives you the best of both worlds.
(After a year on-the-job with the German company, they might be willing to let you work remote part-time, or at least you'd have connections if you wanted to make a move back later on)
I say this as someone who got a GC and dropped out of school to go work on my own startup before going back to do undergrad years later. The degree opens up a lot of options internationally and the US “college experience” is worth the time and money if you’ve got a scholarship.
And degrees from Asian universities are often ranked lower or not accepted at all. I don't know what the situation is like for computer science, but my Indonesian ex had a six year university degree but that wasn't accepted in any Western countries for immigration or employment. Is there a good reason for that? I don't know – my expertise in veterinary science is basically zero, but the clinic where she worked didn't seem that different from Western clinics that I've seen, so I'm somewhat inclined to say "no".
Were you on an F1 visa or something else?
I think this alone is an incredible opportunity that not many people get in their lives. IMO, you have the rest of your life to focus on your career. And is much better to spend these couple of recession/stagnation years in uni instead of in the professional world.
I'm a naturalized citizen of US from Turkey, and nothing beats us when it comes to opportunities.
Not. Even. Close.
Even if you choose EU job, look for ways to come to US.
It positions you inside the US and may make it easier to work here initially. Salaries here are much higher than EU, and opportunities much better imho. You can always move to EU later, and be in a much stronger position.
Background: from Ireland, moved to US. No college degree.