Thanks Oys & thapap for your 2 cents ;) Oys, I am aware of the Nepal bio-med website and have checked out the info over there. Although the FAQ section is quite informative, I have noticed that the website itself is pretty dead (esp. the discussion forum). As for my situation, I think a Master's degree would suffice for what I want to do later professionally (although I might be wrong and find out about it only later). The real problem is being able to finance my education. Working/ going to school part-time might be an option, but if I were to go full-time (which I would prefer to), I would have a hard time finding schools that would provide me any support (through assistantships, grants, fellowships etc.) Following Bostongirl's advice, I did some research on few schools that I am thinking of applying and so far I haven't found any that fund Master's students. Few of them have fellowships that you could apply for after you've finished one or more semesters. So for now I am just applying to few PhD programs and also look for jobs just to keep my options open. Thapap, I think I'll just cover my grounds for now and look for all possible options. I guess time and my fate will decide where I land up.