注1：本文主要是给还没出国，在思考要不要出国的学生写的，而不是给已经出了国回头看自己出国有没有意义的朋友写的，因此没有尝试诠释已经发生的留学有什么价值。

注2：本文不是罗列留学的意义有哪些，而是提出一些方法帮助我们找到自己留学意义的。

今天上午和一位同学用户聊天，聊到如何选择留学国家和打算如何选择专业时，该同学抛出了一个本质性问题“老师，你觉得留学的意义在哪？”当时我就笑了，因为10分钟之前，我刚刚在朋友圈里转过一篇文章就叫做“出国留学意义何在？”。那篇文章下面，我还加了评论“个人觉得解答还不够透，改天我也以此为题写一篇。”看来改天不如今天，现在就和大家聊聊这个话题！

我本人是一名不大不小的海归，我的海归同学们，因为各种各样的原因出国留学；同时我现在帮助同学们准备留学的过程中，又遇到了很多同学，怀揣着不同的想法想要出国留学。基于这么多的观察和交流，我很确定回答这个问题的第一条原则，就是没有标准答案，每个人的留学对于他们意义都不同。

一、留学对于每个人有各自不同的意义

我还记得第一次遇到我的老板，聊到各自的留学生涯，他对留学的描述是如此简单干脆：“我来英国就两个目的，一个拿绿卡，一个名校身份。”因此虽然他的留学之路遇到了各种困难，过程中绝非一帆风顺，但历经打拼，他拿到了剑桥的博士和当地的永久居留权。“看到身边的朋友都回去了，我也很辛苦，但我总会跟老婆说，想想咱们来着是干嘛的，没拿到绿卡，没拿到剑桥，绝对不能回去。”这就是他16岁出国，学费没向家里要，最终获得剑桥博士归国的故事。如今回到中国，虽然还没到40岁，也已是身价上亿，事业有成了。

与我的老板不同，我也有宾大的同学觉得留学不过是职业发展的一个跳板，所以当他看到职场发展的机会的时候，学历或者身份的结果就变得不重要了。他在硕士第一年暑假回来的过程中，通过一封“用户建议信”获得了当时知名社交网络产品经理的赏识，直接越了各种流程拿到了产品团队的高薪offer，于是他秋季就没有回到宾大，办理了休学，开始了他事业打拼。后来那个公司上市后，他的期权也得以套现，如今跳槽在另一家互联网公司，拿着高薪同时自己业余时间还搞着小型创业，也是不亦乐乎。

Note 1: This article is mainly written for students who have not yet gone abroad and are thinking about whether to go abroad, not for friends who have already gone abroad and look back to see if it makes sense for them to go abroad, so there is no attempt to explain what has happened to study abroad value.

Note 2: This article is not to list the meanings of studying abroad, but to propose some methods to help us find the meaning of studying abroad.

When chatting with a classmate user this morning, when we talked about how to choose a country to study abroad and how to choose a major, the classmate raised an essential question "Teacher, what do you think is the significance of studying abroad?" I laughed at that time, because 10 minutes ago, I just posted an article in Moments called "What's the point of studying abroad?". Below that article, I added a comment, "Personally, I think the answer is not thorough enough. I will write an article on this topic some other day." It seems that another day is not as good as today, and I will talk to you about this topic now!

I myself am a medium-sized returnee. My fellow returnees study abroad for various reasons. At the same time, in the process of helping them prepare for studying abroad, I have met many classmates with different aspirations. Ideas want to study abroad. Based on so many observations and exchanges, I am sure that the first principle to answer this question is that there is no standard answer, and the meaning of studying abroad is different for each person.

1. Studying abroad has different meanings for each person

I still remember the first time I met my boss and talked about their respective overseas careers. His description of studying abroad was so simple and straightforward: "I came to the UK for two purposes, one to get a green card and one to be a prestigious school." So although they The journey of studying abroad encountered various difficulties, and the process was by no means smooth sailing, but after hard work, he got a doctorate in Cambridge and the local permanent residency. "Seeing that all the friends around me have gone back, I am also very hard, but I always tell my wife, think about what we are here for, if you don't get a green card, you can't go back if you don't get Cambridge." This is He went abroad at the age of 16, did not ask for tuition fees from his family, and finally got the story of returning to China with a Cambridge doctor. Now back in China, although he is not yet 40 years old, he is already worth hundreds of millions and has a successful career.

Different from my boss, I also have a classmate from Penn who thinks studying abroad is just a springboard for career development, so when he sees opportunities for career development, the results of academic qualifications or status become unimportant. When he came back from the summer vacation of the first year of his master’s degree, he won the appreciation of a well-known social network product manager at that time through a “user suggestion letter”, and directly crossed various processes to get a high-paying offer from the product team, so he did not have any in autumn. After returning to Penn, he took a leave of absence and started his career. Later, after that company went public, his options were also cashed out, and now he has moved to another Internet company, earning a high salary while starting a small business in his spare time, which is also a joy.