Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 March 25

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March 25

Which country offers the easiest scholarships

I would like to study abroad that's why —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.79.129.82 (talk) 01:39, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

For understanding "abroad" here, the OP is located in the USA. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The US Army and Navy have study programs, though their visits abroad are not exactly holidays. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

By "easiest", do you mean least work, or least academically challenging ? StuRat (talk) 09:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Both. The least work and least academically challenging —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.183.42.24 (talk) 19:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I would reccomend a place where at least you are fluent in their language, which might narrow the list down a little. 148.197.120.206 (talk) 11:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

You should look for U.S. universities with strong "study abroad" or student exchange programs. The University of Delaware, where I went to school, has one of the oldest and most extensive study abroad programs in the United States, there are literally dozens of groups placed in univeristies around the world at any one time, either during regular school semesters or during the University's summer or winter break. My wife did one in Bayreuth over a winter one year, and it was easily one of her best experiences in college. Many UD students will, if they can afford it, do multiple study abroad sessions over their college careers; while many of the programs are focused on the language and culture of the place where they are located (my wife, a German minor, studied german literature while in Bayreuth), there are many others which have science and technology, or social science, or just about any focus you want. There are many other colleges and universities which offer similar programs; check around and do some research; I am only really familiar with the UD one, but you can likely find many others. --Jayron32 17:18, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

At what level do you wish to study? Do you want to study for a degree? Or something less advanced? --Tango (talk) 19:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

A Masters degree —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.183.42.24 (talk) 20:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If you actually want to enroll in a degree program outside the U.S. and receive funding for your study outside the U.S., then you will need to choose a country in whose language you are proficient and, more importantly, you will need to be a stellar applicant, because in most countries financial support is largely or entirely reserved for citizens. Funding may be available for very strong external applicants. Do you speak any languages other than English? I ask because graduate programs in other English-speaking countries are typically as rigorous as those in the United States (which of course vary greatly in rigor). Marco polo (talk) 01:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Note the comment on language isn't entirely true. A number of countries where English is not the native language offer some postgraduate programmes where the language of instruction is entirely in English (so proficiency in the local language is not required). I know there are some in Japan [1] [2] and South Korea [3] [4] [5] and China [6]. This is quite common for MBAs and similar as you may notice but I believe (and as shown in some of the refs) also for some of the sciences. I believe some European countries also have postgraduate programmes in English e.g. Sweden [7]. And of course in some/many? former Commonwealth countries even though the native language/s and language of instruction in schools is not English often have most postgraduate programmes in English. I know this is the case in Malaysia (where actually most undergraduate programmes are in English too) but I believe it's the same for India and probably Nigeria and others as well. Of course not all of these have necessarily set up for export education so you may still have difficulty (in Malaysia even most public universities are now targetting the export education market to some extent so I presume you will generall be fine with only English). (I'm not including Singapore because the main language of instruction even in most schools there is English.) Not commonwealth but Saudi Arabia also has their King Saud University where I believe English is used in most subjects. and I've seen them advertising for students in New Scientist. I think some of the other Arab or 'Middle Eastern' countries are similar e.g. the UAE. (Whether you want to go to any of them at the current time may be a different matter.) Note that I'm not suggesting this as a course of action. For example how well you will be able to survive in said countries without any understanding of the native language will depend on several things including what country. Also I do concur with one of Marco polo's other points, in many countries getting a scholarship if you aren't a local is difficult, particularly for Masters where from my experience scholarships (particularly full fee paying with living expenses ones tend to be rarer (compard to PhD ones) anyway. Although it sounds like the OP was more interested in easy scholarships than easy degrees I would note while it may be easier to get a Masters in some institutions the merit of a Masters, if no one recognises it and if you wrote a thesis anyone reading it will laugh, is questionable.... Nil Einne (talk) 19:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

If you already have an undergraduate degree or you have taken any courses in the pursuit of one, then you should visit your school's counseling office to talk with a counselor about scholarships they know of that you can apply for, and what you should do to prepare for doing so. The guidance of an expert will get you much better information than we can give you here. Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The classic answer is a Master's program in the Nordic countries. Norway, Finland, and Iceland still provide tuition free graduate programs in English to any foreign student who is admitted. I believe work permits are also issued.

Mailingliste (talk) 00:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Don Pedro

We do not seem to haave an article on Don Pedro, a dessert drink that I often have ion South Africa, it is made from ice cream and liqure of some sort I would like to know how to make these and any other info, please help. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.89.16.154 (talk) 16:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Typing "South African Don Pedro recipe" into Google gets you like 100 hits. See here: [8]. --Jayron32 17:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Lavender oil and hydrosol

I've given up, I've scoured the internet and I can't really find the answer to this. Even going through conversions to try and get pounds to gallons... (nope) I've been doing research on how lavender is distilled, and I'm trying to figure out how much of both oil and hydrosol I would produce if, say, I started with one hundred pounds of prepared flowers. The best hint I can find is 3ml of oil from 1.5l of hydrosol - how accurate is this as a benchmark? Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 18:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The article on lavender (lavande: [9]) in the French wikipedia has some figures. The percentage of oil obtained varies from 1.8% to 0.2% depending on the species of lavender used. There's a more complete table in this article: [10] --Xuxl (talk) 20:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Is that 2% of a gallon? The tables more look like what molecules the oil constitutes of... Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 08:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

You are right, the second link is about chemical composition. But the percentages in the first one are the mass-to-mass ratio you can obtain. Ie for 1 kg of lavender you'll get 10 to 2g of oil depending on the species of lavender used. Pleclown (talk) 10:17, 28 March 2011 (UTC)