Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are college dropouts, yet they're some of the richest people in the world. A lot of students bring them up whenever someone talks about the importance of college.
But then you also have people like Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Jensen Huang.
Anyone here actually drop out and build something successful? How did it work out for you?
Everyone talks about homesickness, weather, food, and finances.
But for people who've actually lived abroad, what was the challenge that caught you completely off guard?
Something you didn't expect before moving.
Could be practical, social, academic, mental, or just a weird day-to-day thing nobody warned you about.
Seniors, what's one struggle you wish someone had told you about earlier?
Mine was probably "don't worry about internships, companies will come to campus and hire everyone."
I've also heard:
Curious what advice you've received that turned out to be completely wrong, outdated, or exaggerated.
Before moving abroad, I assumed most of the challenges would be the obvious ones - finding housing, making friends, managing finances, etc.
Then I came across a video about an Indian student in the UK that made me realize how many small things can catch you off guard.
Apparently, a "V" on a menu doesn't always mean what many Indians assume it means. In the video, a student ordered a pizza marked vegetarian and it arrived with a poached egg on top. Not a huge issue for everyone, but definitely the kind of thing you'd want to know beforehand if you're strictly vegetarian.
It got me wondering: what's something you wish someone had told you before you moved abroad?
Not necessarily a major problem - just one of those things that would've saved you confusion, money, or an awkward situation.
my_qualifications
I started looking into studying in Germany and realized I may have seriously underestimated the number of steps involved.
I originally thought it would just be GPA + language score + application, but then I came across things like APS and the blocked account requirement that I hadn’t fully accounted for.
Now I’m trying to piece everything together properly because I feel like I might still be missing some important steps or timelines.
For people who’ve already gone through this process - what are the things that caught you off guard or weren’t obvious at the beginning?
Would really appreciate a reality check from people who’ve done it before.
So I only found out about education loan refinancing pretty recently through a friend. Until then, I assumed it was either super complicated or not really relevant for Indian education loans.
Turns out it's basically this: if your loan interest rate is higher than what you could get today (or your profile is stronger now than when you first took the loan), you may be able to switch lenders and reduce the total amount you end up paying.
I ran a quick check using a calculator to compare the numbers for my own loan, and the difference wasn't insignificant. Enough for me to seriously consider whether refinancing makes sense.
If you have an education loan and haven't revisited the terms since you signed it, it might be worth taking another look. (I can share the link in comments if anyone wants to check.)
Has anyone here actually refinanced their education loan? How smooth (or painful) was the process?
PS: I know I'm probably late to this.
I came across this statistic recently and it genuinely surprised me.
Apparently more than 1.8 lakh Schengen visa applications from India were rejected last year. That's a lot of people spending money on fees and paperwork without getting approval.
It got me wondering how people actually evaluate their chances before applying.
I've mostly been looking at forums, admit profiles, and recently tried a visa chance calculator just to get another data point. Not sure how accurate these tools are, but it was interesting to see how different factors affected the result (will share the link in comments.)
How are you guys assessing your chances before applying?
Just read this news. That means, for PhD and Master's students, any paperwork error or delay can be problematic...
PS: If anyone wishes to know more - https://www.instagram.com/thisisfiltered/p/DaAjv9IlEU_/
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are college dropouts, yet they're some of the richest people in the world. A lot of students bring them up whenever someone talks about the importance of college.
But then you also have people like Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Jensen Huang.
Maybe this is controversial, but I think finishing your degree is important. The successful dropouts get talked about way more than the millions who dropped out and never made it.
Anyone here actually drop out and build something successful? How did it work out for you?
Fall’26 is around the corner, and I’ve been thinking about how everyone is deciding where to apply/commit.
For a country like the US, where one wrong decision can mean spending more than what some families earn in generations, choosing a university feels like a massive gamble.
I feel like consultants can only take you so far because everyone has their own biases. At the end of the day, our own research probably matters the most.
Curious on what’s the biggest factor you’re using to shortlist universities?
I just came across a video about an Indian student in the UK that completely broke my brain.
Apparently, over there, even if a menu item has a "V" (which we always assume means pure vegetarian), it can still include eggs. The guy in the video said his pure veg friend went to Pizza Express, ordered a delicious-looking pizza with a tomato base because it was marked "V", and it showed up with a whole poached egg right on top. The poor guy went home hungry that day.
As someone who has never gone abroad, this feels like such a weird cultural difference. For those of you already living abroad, have you run into any weird food traps or cultural shocks like this? How do you guys avoid these?
PS: The video, for anyone wondering: https://www.instagram.com/gradright/reel/DZUG_2jzpJ7/
So I only found out about education loan refinancing pretty recently through a friend and honestly thought it would be either super complicated or not really relevant for Indian loans.
But turns out it’s basically just: if your loan rate is higher than what you could get today (or your profile is stronger now than when you first took it), you can switch lenders and potentially reduce what you pay overall.
I ran a quick check using a calculator just to see the difference on my own loan, and it wasn’t trivial. Enough that I’ve started actually looking into whether it makes sense to move it.
If anyone has an ongoing education loan and hasn’t really revisited the terms since the day they signed it, this is probably worth a quick look: ReFi calculator
Has anyone here actually refinanced their education loan? Curious how smooth (or not) the process was.
Everyone prepares you for the cold weather and cooking your own food, but what’s the one struggle that completely caught you off guard?
I was reading a breakdown of student struggles today (will drop the link in the comments) and it mentioned stuff like the mental toll of constant hyper-independence.
Seniors, what's a weird or lesser-known problem you had to deal with, and how did you fix it? Give me your worst.
I know this is probably gonna sound a bit dumb so please don’t absolutely cook me in the comments, I genuinely thought I had this sorted.
The plan looked fine at first glance - low premium, decent coverage numbers, all the usual looks good on paper stuff. I was basically one click away from just buying it and calling it a day.
Then I randomly went into the exclusions + my university waiver requirements and realised… yeah, it would’ve covered everything except the things I’d actually need 💀
What’s crazy is there are like 4–5 very common mistakes people make with international student insurance and none of them are obvious unless someone explicitly tells you what to look for.
And the gap isn’t small either. One wrong choice and you’re suddenly paying thousands out of pocket later when you actually need it.
Feels like one of those things that only makes sense after you already mess it up once.
If anyone wants, here is the breakdown I found that actually helped me avoid it: https://gradright.com/choosing-the-wrong-student-insurance-plan-common-mistakes-to-avoid/
I kept seeing this everywhere while starting out that Germany is free / almost free and I’ll be honest, it kind of shaped how I approached my early research.
And yeah, tuition-wise it’s actually true for a lot of public unis. Compared to the US/UK, it feels like a completely different universe.
But once you start actually adding everything up, “free” starts sounding a bit misleading.
Like semester fees, living costs (which are not as low as people assume), health insurance, blocked account requirements, flights… it slowly stops being this “no cost” country.
For Indian students especially, I feel like the real question is less about tuition and more about what the total cost over 1–2 years actually ends up looking like, vs just taking a loan for somewhere else.
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to break all of this down properly while researching. If anyone’s curious, I can drop it in the comments.
PS: Not saying it’s bad at all, Germany still feels like one of the most financially accessible options out there. Just feels like the internet version of free skips a lot of the actual maths.
my_qualifications
I swear I went into this thinking it’s just GPA + language score + done.
Turns out Germany said: lol no.
The deeper I went into the application stuff, the more I kept finding requirements I had never even heard people talk about properly.
APS certificate was the first surprise. Like… why is this even a thing I only hear about AFTER I start applying 😭 and it literally takes weeks, so if you miss timing you’re just stuck.
And the blocked account thing sounds simple until you actually check it. At some point I was just like okay why is no one saying ALL of this upfront.
I ended up putting a bunch of these “wait what?” requirements together while reading around, just to make sense of it myself. If anyone’s curious, you can comment and I’ll share what I read.
But yeah, feels like the kind of stuff you only realise once you’re already deep in the process.
Anyone else got blindsided by random Germany requirements or is it just me?
Every Indian family has one person who acts like they have the latest update on F-1 visas, OPT, jobs, and the US economy… because they moved abroad 20 years ago.
And then there’s the aunty who heard from “someone’s son’s friend” that the job market is finished and you shouldn’t go.
Came across this article today and it honestly felt like it was written after sitting in my family WhatsApp group for a week 😭:
Kinda tempted to forward this and disappear from the group.
Anyone else dealing with outdated study abroad advice from relatives?
my_qualifications:
I’m honestly kind of stressed about this whole visa process.
Home country- India
Visa type - F1
The application fees alone are a lot, and the idea that you can just lose all of it with a rejection is messing with my head.
I’ve been trying to figure out if my profile is even strong enough before I apply, so I looked at a visa chance calculator tool. Just played around with inputs like scores, country, and field to get a rough idea.
It didn’t magically calm me down, but it did make it clearer what areas I should probably work on before applying.
Link if anyone’s in the same boat: https://gradright.com/visa-chance-calculator/
Idk if it’s just me but I’ve been watching videos of the protests and it actually wasn’t just students out there. Gen X showed up too.
Saw a video of a 54yo professor, Sudipta Sengupta, bringing huge jars of water and glucose biscuits for everyone. They left a note saying "With love, from Gen X to Gen Z."
Ngl I found that oddly heartwarming. Whatever you think about the actual movement, it’s wild seeing older generations show up like that.
Here's the video if you'd like to see it: https://www.instagram.com/sudiptasengupta6/reel/DZSL608BQ7H/
ok hear me out.
I’ve been looking into the student health insurance requirements for the US, and I just saw someone comparing the university's plan versus third-party external plans.
His university plan was literally over $5k a year, but the external one he found was around $2k-ish. Saving $3,000 a year is actually wild to me.
But then there’s the waiver process 😭 Apparently you have to go through a whole mess of paperwork and approvals just to convince the uni that your outside plan actually covers enough so they let you opt out.
Has anyone here actually successfully waived their university insurance for an external one? Was it relatively smooth or a complete nightmare?
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