There are many factors involved when it comes to choosing the right university. I am going to go over the most important ones.

The Program

Don’t be fooled by the illusion of prestigious universities being always the best option. Their curriculum can be too hard and sometimes they don’t have a good program for the career of your choice.

Location

Chances are you will be visiting home often, so location is a very important factor. Make sure you are within driving distance of home or that the airfare is affordable.

Financial Aid and Scholarships

Most students focus on tuition cost to choose a university. Tuition cost is not nearly as important as financial aid packages and scholarships available. If one college’s tuition is $30,000 a year but you can get $20,000 in financial aid and scholarships, then it will be cheaper than another one with a lower tuition where no financial aid is available.

Consider Community Colleges

Most community colleges cost considerably less than universities. For this reason, some students decide to get their degrees at community colleges, and others do their general studies at a community college and then they switch to a bigger university, saving thousands of dollars that way.

Facilities

You need to take facilities into consideration as well. A good library and a modern computer lab, for example, are going to make things much easier and more enjoyable for you.

Class Size

Make sure that you feel comfortable with the size of the average class at the school you are looking into. Are there too many students per class? Maybe you are the kind of person who can greatly benefit from small classes where your teacher can spend more time with you.

Climate and Geography

This might not sound as a big deal, but in most cases it is. If you lived in Alaska all your life and now you are looking into Miami State University, you might not be able to tolerate the high temperatures. This is an extreme case, but you get the point.

Visit the Campus

If you have two or three main choices, it might be worth it to go to the campuses and see how you feel. Don’t make your decisions based purely on emotional factors, but a gut feeling is sometimes worth much more than a dozen logical reasons. Also talk to other students and ask them what they think about that college.

Tags: choose the perfect college, choose the perfect university, choose the right college, choose the right university

We’re going to go over the meaning of some business-related words. If you’re a business executive and currently attending an ESL school, it’s important that you review them once in a while so you don’t lose track of their subtleties, since these words are the basic substance of your communication. We hope the following list helps you keep your English fluent and robust. Good luck!

Marketing – The study of markets and their behavior, based mainly on statistical research, with the aim to promote, sell and distribute a product or service. Marketing mixes a wide range of practices that include advertising, publicity, promotion, pricing, and overall packaging of the goods or services.

Merger – A fusion of two previously separate corporations into a new legal entity. Previous businesses are dissolved and their assets and liabilities moved into the rising entity.

Multi-level Marketing (MLM) – A business in which a person’s source of income isn’t limited to their own sales, but also proceeds from the sales made by people they have recruited, and also by people recruited by recruited people, and so on.

Network Marketing – A business built and sustained by a distribution network. Usually, such businesses are also MLM (see above).

Networking – As the name suggests, it’s a way of developing relationships in order to gain knowledge and grow your business base.

Outsourcing – When a company uses services from another business, such as accounting, payroll, IT, advertising.

Partnership – A business made up of two or more individuals legally regarded as a group of owners rather than a single entity.

Patent – A document stating that a certain idea or concept belongs to someone (inventor), and grants the inventor’s rights to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention for a limited time.

Public Relations (PR) – The deliberate promotion of a specific image for a business. Not to be confused with publicity, which refers only to the materials used in a specific stage of a public relations campaign.

Sales – The exchange of a product or service for money. It may also refer to this activity as a profession or to the department within a company that performs this activity.

Small Business Administration (SBA) – The United States Government Agency responsible of “providing customer-oriented, full-service programs and accurate, timely information to the entrepreneurial community”.

Sole Proprietorship – A business owned and run by one person.

Strategic Alliance – An ongoing relationship between two businesses in which they combine efforts for a specific purpose.

Trademark – A form of legal protection for words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services. The main difference with patents, in this sense, is that trademarks can be renewed forever as long as they are being used in business.

Venture Capital (VC) – A form of financing for a company in exchange for partial ownership and control of the business, over a limited time period, usually 3-5 years. Investments typically range from $500,000 to $5 million, although there are occasionally VC investments for as low as $50,000 or as high as $20 million.

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention www.englishlci.com as the original source).

Tags: Business English, business english vocabulary, business vocabulary for esl students, esl school, executive english, vocabulary for business english

There is a correct way to use, in English, abbreviations originated from Latin terms and phrases.  Here we show you the right use of the most common 10.  

Feel free to share these with your ESL class and have some fun practicing them! 

• e.g.

This abbreviation means exempli gratia or ‘for example’ and it should always be used with the periods and followed by a comma to signal sample examples¾e.g.,¾. 

Example: “I like many of the ladies on the Food Network (e.g., Rachael Ray, Giada DeLaurentiis, etc.)” 

• etc.

It means et cetera or ‘and so forth’ and is commonly misspelled ect.  It must be preceded by a comma.  Do not use etc. in an e.g. list, as abbreviations are redundant. 

Example: “The drawer held items like scissors, clips, post-its, pens, markers, etc.” 

• et al.

This means et alia or ‘and others’ and is normally used to substitute the names of all but the primary author in a reference to a multiauthor publication or article.  There is no period after et because this word is not an abbreviation.  Do not precede it with a comma. 

Example: “Possible explanation supplied by Kahneman et al.” 

The second word in this term¾alias¾is used alone to mean ‘otherwise known as’ or ‘an assumed name’. 

• i.e.

This abbreviation means id est or ‘that is’ and, like e.g., is often wrongly used without periods.  Followed by a comma, it precedes a clarification, not examples as e.g. introduces. 

Example: “We are traveling to the state in which Grandma lives, i.e., Florida.” 

• fl.

It means floruit or ‘flourished’ and is used in association with a reference to a person’s heyday, commonly in lieu of a range of years denoting the person’s life span. 

Example: “John Jones (fl. 1197–1229)” 

• N.B.

Meaning nota bene or ‘note well’, it can be easily replaced by the imperative note, and is used in uppercase letters and followed by a colon. 

Example: “We are going to the Himalayas in January – N.B.: it is very cold at that time of year, so make sure to bring warm clothes.” 

• per cent.

This is a British English abbreviation that means per centum or ‘for each one hundred’ and is spelled in U.S. English as percent. 

Example: “Many card issuers now have purchase rates above 20 per cent and cash advance rates above 21 per cent.” 

• re

It is the short for in re or ‘in the matter of’ and is commonly followed by a colon.  It is often believed to be an abbreviation for reply, especially in email communications.

Example: “These are the claims determined re: Klein Company.”

• viz.

This is the abbreviation for videlicet or ‘namely’, and unlike e.g., precedes an appositive list, one lead by a reference to a class that the list totally constitutes.

Example: “Each symbol represents one of the four elements, viz. earth, air, fire, and water.”

Note there is not a comma after it.

• vs.

It means versus or ‘against’, and is abbreviated to v. in legal usage.

The term is usually used on names of boxing or wrestling matches, sports teams encounters or titles of mediocre science fiction movies.

Example: “Lakers tonight vs. Chicago Time: 7:30. On the air: TV: FS West; Radio: 710, 1330. Where: Staples Center. Records: Lakers 12-2, Bulls 7-4.”

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Tags: advanced esl, esl business english, esl class, ESL Classes, esl lessons, esl practice, esl school

How to Choose a Good American University- Perception vs. Reality

If you’re interested in studying at an American university there are several key factors that you’ll need to review in selecting the right program for you, in this article we’ll try to break down the differences between perception and reality. 

Rankings

Most students think first of rankings, and while rankings are important, the reality is that not everyone is going to get into Harvard, Princeton and Yale.  So it’s important to take into account other factors, such as geographic location, programs, school size, and finding the right fit for you. 

Location, Location, Location

It’s important to match the geographic location of a university with your budget and interests.  While many U.S. coastal cities sound attractive, the reality is that locations such as New York City and San Francisco have a very high cost of living that not all international students can afford.  In contrast, there are many other locations in the U.S., such as the west which offer safe cities with a more affordable cost of living.  Furthermore, make sure that the location you’re looking at offers activities that fit your interests.  If you enjoy outdoor activities, remember that such activities are limited during winter months in a coastal city such as Boston.   A location like Denver or Colorado Springs offers year round access to a multitude of outdoor activities.

Programs

Make sure that the university you are interested in offers the academic program that you’re looking for.  This sounds simple, but you’d be amazed at how many people do not research the program offerings when looking at an American university.

School Size

Look at the size of the school and the class size when reviewing a university.  Make sure that you feel comfortable with the average class size and feel that you’ll get enough attention and assistance.   Additionally, we advise that you look at the statistics of international students from your home country.  If you’re Chinese, you most likely don’t want to go to a school that has a large Chinese population.   Most of these statistics are available on the university’s website.

In summary,  when choosing an American university it’s important to separate perception from reality and thoroughly review your options to find the best fit for you.  Good luck!

Tags: Conditional Admission, Going to College in the USA, Studying at an American University, TOEFL Waiver