How Good Does Your Spoken English Need to Be to Study in the US?

Hi everyone, I'm Michael. A quick intro: I graduated from Purdue University in 2022 with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, and I currently work at Google as a Strategy Account Manager.

Today I want to talk about something a lot of people worry about before studying abroad: whether their spoken English is good enough to survive in Europe or North America. I was born and raised in Taiwan and had never been abroad before college. The difference is that I was very confident in my spoken English... until I actually went abroad. Here's my story~

Based on my personal experience, I'll split this into four parts

1. Applying

2. Academics

3. Social life

4. Job hunting

1. Applying

When you apply, your spoken English only needs to be good enough to pass an English proficiency test. If you know the IELTS or TOEFL question types, you'll mostly be fine. But if you're applying to a program that requires interviews, like an MBA, that's a different story: being able to express yourself in English becomes an essential skill. When I applied for undergrad, a few schools also had interviews (Harvard, Columbia; I interviewed but didn't get into either)

2. Academics

Applications, tests, visas, money: after a whole series of hurdles, you've made it to the US. When you study in the US, being able to express yourself in English gets you more resources quickly. Professors love students who present well, and strong communication skills give you more chances to join clubs, activities and competitions, and to take on leadership roles in them.

If you study business, at least 2 classes every semester will require presentations. I won't exaggerate, though: if you can just survive those two or three presentation-heavy classes each semester, you can actually scrape by. But you've gone abroad and spent millions. Is just getting by really all you want???

3. Social life

Honestly, you don't have to be a social butterfly. You can stick to making friends with Taiwanese and Chinese students. But if you want close friends from all over the world, language, culture and communication will all be big challenges. It took me almost a year to make American friends I could really open up to.

Before going abroad, I always thought foreigners were especially friendly and easy to talk to. But that's because many of the foreigners who come to Taiwan are English teachers, who tend to be friendly people to begin with. Also, people on the West and East Coasts are generally more diverse, so there's more cultural openness and exchange. I just want to tell everyone: be mentally prepared. Being fluent in English and being good at small talk are two different things!

4. Job hunting

If you know a bit about the US job market in recent years, you know that staying in the US isn't hard, but staying long-term with a decent salary is a real challenge. That's even more true if you're not in a STEM field, where interviews are a big test. As a non-native speaker, what matters isn't how fluent your English is but whether you can get to the point and speak clearly and logically. If you can use communication techniques to convey emotion in an interview, that's even better.

On top of that, when I interned in the US, getting a return offer was also thanks to analyzing my results clearly and in an organized way during my case presentation. Most US companies care a lot about communication skills. Even when they're very results-driven, they still need people who can tell a story to pull the results together

Overall, most international students will tell you spoken English isn't that important, as long as you can communicate... until you need it and it's too late

If you want to learn more about speaking English well, feel free to follow the English communication account I started

The Acorn Academy

Bonus: if you want to know what my Google interview process was like, check it out here