Thinking about leaving SA

cguy said:
G

What kind of EE did you study? (I know Stellenbosch is big on RF)? If your programming and maths background is strong there is the semiconductor and finance industries that often have a surprising need for this skill set.
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My postgraduate work is on semiconductors and nanotechnology.

Nicodeamus said:
It depends where in Europe you apply. In general the SA system is out of sync with the rest of t he world. As an engineer you need to be accredited with ECSA to be recognized with the washington accord (which takes between 3-5 years in SA). Europe however it becoming more and more critical against South African qualification - despite what our universities might say.

In general in Europe you do 3 years of study and 1 year of internship. If you want to convert that to a masters then it requires 2 extra years. In SA we do 4 years of study with no work experience (maybe 6 months if you're on a bursary). It is easy for us to get into their masters programmes, but in general SA engineers do not want to do another 2 years of studying.
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Our degrees are a lot broader than most of the degrees overseas. Not sure if that is good or bad, but I think we are still on-par.

HavocXphere said:
Hardly. All of my friends that went overseas got visa clearance easily (on a SA passports) via sponsorship. The only one I'm aware of that wasn't super smooth was a US one...got delayed a couple of weeks until it cleared.

Obviously depends heavily on the circumstances...but its definitely not "near impossible". All of those instances are under "favourable" circumstances so to speak, but you mention electrical engineering - that should be favourable too?


I keep seeing this on mybb...never heard it once IRL from any of the people I know that moved (about 2 dozen, various circumstances). The *only* IRL mention of this I heard was a person moving *to* SA. (A crazy story in itself...you'd think SA welcomes highly qualified European engineers with open arms...nope)
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If you have connections, sponsorship is easy. I also know of a bunch of people that went overseas after their PhDs or Masters, but that was because they or their supervisors knew someone and helped them to get a job. If you simply apply to a job-advert it is very difficult, not impossible, but you have to stand out.
If the company can get a local with 80% of the skills and qualifications I am sure they will hire him, because it is "easier".
 
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