Hi all. So I’m having a dilemma dealing with a decision that needs to be made by the end of this week. I recently graduated from college (I’m only 22) in my home country and moved to the US to be with my family. However, I really miss my home town which is where I spent my entire life. My friends, my life, my favorite spots are all over there. I like the way of life there, and it feels safe. I may even be able to get a really good job in my home country if I go back while I’m still considered a recent graduate (if I wait too long, companies will no longer be interested in me). This will enable me to be independent which I really want to be. BUT I don’t have a guarantee of getting a job there, and I can only find out by flying back to my home country to personally attend interviews. This will require sorting out last minute accommodation too. Also, the country is really small so I won’t have as much career progression and might end up seeing it as restrictive after a few years.
On the other hand, my family wants me to stay in the US. This is understandable because if I leave, my permanent residency for the US will expire within a year. So I will never be able to come back to live in the US. But to become a US citizen I’ll have to stick around in the US for the next five years, a huge amount of time. Furthermore, I can’t get a job in the US unless I do a masters degree. So not only am I giving up the potential chance of getting a good job immediately in my home country, I also have to spend a whole year studying in the US (for the GMAT exam) to get into a good university, and then, doing a whole year of a masters, and then trying to find work in the US (hopefully the economy is good in 2015?! Plus I’ll be 25 years old by then!). As for finances, my father wants to pay for my education (I haven’t yet gotten a job so its not really a possibility for me to fund it myself). However, my father is very controlling and when I live with him its hard for me to have a good social life.
I am completely lost as to what to do. My main consideration is that a) I’m not 100% guaranteed a job in my home country if I go back, so it will be risky to go, but b) I definitely can’t get a good job in the US unless I spend another two years studying anyway, and c) I don’t want to shut the door to being able to live in the US forever but d) my friends and everything familiar is in my home country, and so is my immediate independence.
Unless you really, really suck at taking tests, or you want to get in to a really, really competitive grad program, you may want to revise that down by about 50 weeks. I think I bought a book (which I never read) and ran through the practice software like twice.
I would say you should go back home. Let me share an anecdote. My family moved here to America from India in 1999, and at first my dad really liked it, but now he has regrets about it. It’s pretty tough; he has to wait two years just to see his parents, and even that is only for like a week. My dad first moved to Montana, and really loved all the sights, but now, even up to this day, he jokes about going back to India. While he knows that is unrealistic, he still wishes up to this day he hadn’t moved here.
So unless you confidently think you will be fine living here in the United States, you might want to go back. You will still be able to meet your family, like more than once in a several years, and you will still have everything you love.
Remember, even if you end up being wealthier here, it’s the happiness in life that counts. If you’re not happy, no matter how wealthy you are, what’s the point?
I hope you best of luck in whatever path you chose.
Seconding this… I signed up for the tests on a Monday, Amazon Primed the practice materials at the same time (so I had them on Wednesday evening), and took the test the following Friday. Now, I wouldn’t recommend this for everyone, but I imagine pretty much everyone would be able to review thoroughly in 4-6 weeks.
As for the rest of it? I went ‘home’ immediately after college, in the small-town-US sense rather than the separate-country sense, and it was nice having friends and family around for support. Especially graduating into the terrible job market that I did. That said, if I was doing it again, I’d have moved to Chicago or Seattle, or something similar. You’re in your 20s, do something crazy like that while you have the chance, and pick up the citizenship (and the benefits that come with it) while you’re figuring things out. YMMV, quite a lot, of course!
I’m generally in favor of young adults getting out from under their parents’ thumbs as much as possible. I vote to go back home.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but is there any possibility that you could do phone or skype interviews with companies in your home country to try and secure a job before you make a final decision?
Huge is pretty relative and I guess tends to be age-related. From where I’m sitting 25 or even 27 is still quite young, five years is not that big of a deal especially with the help of family support ( assuming they’re not toxic in some way ) and well worth the benefit of U.S. citizenship, which could come in handy at any time in a hopefully long life. Especially if you face the possibility of stagnation in your home country.
But I sympathize with your dilemma. Best of luck with a tough decision :).
Forget the friends stuff. They will get married, find jobs elsewhere, find new friends, etc… and you will not have them around anyway.
Go with the best job ops. Then, you will find friends, or can bring them over here!
Believe me, friends are the last variable to consider in making an important decision.
Stay here.
I know, that is not the answer you want to hear, but it is the best option.
Immigration laws are in the process of being changed - this could speed things up for you, but if you leave now, it could also make it more difficult to return in a few years to start over.
Regardless of which small country, you already admit that job prospects are tight and chance for advancement are limited - even in the future.
Somehow you have it in your head that if you stay here and go to school, you will not be able to return to the small country and work. I think you are wrong…I would think many small countries would be quite happy to have someone from their country, but who has studied abroad and has an advanced degree.
OK, so your father is a bit of a stick in the mud. Surprise - so are most parents of most people in the world. Get over it…in a few years, you will be out and gone and on your merry way - but in the meantime, FREE college thanks to dad? Trust me, if you had to pay on your own this would be a huge deal!
Chill - you might think time is flying by, but at your age, there is still ample time to flap those wings and go elsewhere in a couple of years - after the legal immigration paperwork is completed and with a far better college degree in hand.
Also - I agree that the all-important friends and places you know now are, in the long run, truly unimportant. The friends are going to move on, get married, move away…the places you know will change hands and become Starbucks. It is not worth going back for those reasons alone. I so remember how much I deally loved my college friends and those fun times. To be totally honest, I don’t even remember their names anymore, and those places have long since closed up or moved on to new younger students with other interests.
Sorry to bust your balloon - but I don’t see any real downside to staying here, but see whole bunches of downsides to leaving.
Right this minute there is a guy hiking through the desert with a gallon of water on his back and nothing else trying to get to the US to work illegally. He’d probably kill to have your opportunity for US citizenship. Five years is NOTHING in a lifetime. Citizenship here is an opportunity not that many people get. Don’t throw it away. Once you get it, you have it forever - get it and then go wherever you want.
How’s come you have to stay with your family if you live in the US? You’re young, move to NYC and work as a waiter or something.
The only maths I did was back in high school, I didn’t do any at uni so i’ve lost track of all the basics! And if I stay in the US, I’ll have about 3 hours available a day to study for it. I think I’ll need a score of 650-700 to get into a good business school like Vanderbuilt or McCombs. Any tips? =)
Fair enough! I’m from New Zealand so its a well developed country, and being an NZ citizen, I (will always) have the right to live/work in Australia, and the UK too. And I think I have a pathway to Asia too because of my parent’s descent.
Immigration laws are in the process of being changed - this could speed things up for you, but if you leave now, it could also make it more difficult to return in a few years to start over.
Regardless of which small country, you already admit that job prospects are tight and chance for advancement are limited - even in the future.]
Thanks DMark! Some interesting insights there which align almost exactly with that of my family’s, so I do respect that! I’m just curious about what you said regarding the immigration laws, I know they may be changing for illegal immigrants, but any clues as to what’s coming up for others?
In the interests of debate, i wonder, indeed prospects could be tighter in New Zealand in the long term. But over there, there’s a high emphasis is on work-life balance, whilst in US most claim that a corporate working life is really just… work, no life.
Also, there is more job security there than in the US, here I’ve been told getting laid off happens to many people and many times. I wonder how people in the business world deal with so much pressure here??
I notice a lot of Americans replying to the OP with some fairly stereotypical jingoism. As an Australian who moved to California around 6 years ago, job opportunities, and the overall work culture here, leave a lot to be desired. Overall, I’ve noticed that worker’s rights in the US are significantly different than back home, that the work-life balance is indeed completely skewed.
My first advice to young people is always the same: Choose the path which opens your options for the future.
I feel that the teens and twenties should be about building options, not closing them off. Granted, it becomes necessary to specialize somewhat in schooling, but an advanced degree will help you even if you end up working in another field.
There are many people who believe strongly that the USA holds the greatest opportunities of any country; and that may be true if your goal is to be an entrepreneur and build an empire. But it sounds to me like you have your feet on the ground and just want to earn a decent wage and live a happy life. The USA is not necessarily the best place for that. I foresee work hours increasing and job security decreasing for at least the next ten years before it begins to turn around again.
Still, it seems to me that going home now closes off your options substantially.
A couple of questions:
Why does the decision need to be made this week?
Might Dad be willing to send you to University at home?
I have to decide pretty soon because if i want a job (with the Big 4 - ie PWC, Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst and Young) in NZ, I need to finish off four more NZ university courses this year - and the uni semester starts veryy soon. Recruiters will open applications for jobs for 2014, this March. I can only have a chance with them if they see me finishing these courses off this year. In NZ I don’t really need to do any more university than that. I already know entry into the big 4 in the US is much more competitive, and a lengthier process. Not that I’m guaranteed success in NZ, but my chances are much higher.
I don’t want to be a CEO or entrepreneur or anything. I just want to be an accountant in a really good company, where I am also happy living my life. I wonder if there are companies in the US that allow a good work-life balance, and how hard it is to gain employment with them?
But clearly, income is higher in the states. Cost of living is lower in the states. And citizenship is harder to gain in the states once I leave.
On another note, I’ve been offered a small internship in the US (with a small accounting and tax company) for 40 hours a week, but unpaid. Could turn into paid later on, so I can study for GMAT while I do this. Then masters, and then CPA. By 2015 I can graduate from masters and hopefully, finally, get a job. Oh gee. Looks like I’ll have to work three times harder in the US! I hope this will be worth it?
Soo yeah, still pretty confused. I feel like I should be out there doing something, figuring things out, but I don’t really know where to begin.
Maybe. But I think it is just good sense to keep as many options open as possible and five years ain’t much. If the situation was reversed and it was an American kid in New Zealand five years away from citizenship, I’d probably advise him to stay as well :).