Many of tomorrow’s professionals will have an almost exact idea of the career path they’ll follow after further education, so that the obvious study choices are laid out in front of them in unmistakeable terms: Scottish policemen will train at Tulliallan, and budding radio engineers will probably attend Glasgow Nautical College.

However if the exact nature one’s future profession is still concealed within a wider area of endeavour – “engineering”, for example – it can be a little more difficult to choose the “right” avenue of learning from the numerous potentials available.

Beyond gaining qualifications, there could be another objective worth examining too. University surely isn’t exclusively about getting certificates to gain a job, but also a major life experience capable of delivering major personal dividends of the sort that can help frame the course of somebody’s whole future, and in the most positive way.

Study in a stimulating and perhaps culturally different environment can unleash energy and enthusiasm of the kind likely to underpin “success” in its most holistic sense – and the dream ticket is surely to find a place which can deliver all of this, and also cater for particularly relevant specialities.

From a Scottish perspective, there’s nothing new about overseas study. In centuries past well-to-do families sent their sons (it was always sons) to Paris or to Rome universities, to broaden the mind as well as expand the intellect.

Another favourite was Leiden in Holland, which – curiously enough – has become increasingly popular all over again with students from Scotland and Northern Ireland.

It can take major resources to undertake study in some truly exotic location such as Tokyo, and such a programme will probably come in tandem with a prospective employment or internment post implicitly waiting in the wings.

However while Scotland’s universities remain first choices for many, it certainly isn’t unusual for would-be students with specific study agendas to look at options in America or western Europe.

Meanwhile Arab states are intent on building a sound reputation for academic excellence with a raft of potentially interesting courses – often but not automatically linked to industrial areas of enterprise (it could be the oil industry, or renewable energy) which have a special regional relevance.

The culture is different at universities in Dubai of course, but academic life in particular has developed over recent decades in close harmony with international trade and industry – unsurprisingly, as Dubai is one economic, industrial and academic powerhouse of the region.

The American University of Sharjah streams a rich vein of Arab cultural learning into its syllabus, immediately and cogently making the implicit point that this fast-developing area of the Middle East has a strong claim to be the “home of science”.

The educated Arab world’s disciplined and enquiringly analytic scientists spent the Middle Ages establishing the very foundations of knowledge in fields as diverse as mathematics and medicine.

For good measure its scholars preserved and transcribed the ancient masterpieces of the Greeks and Romans, both scientific and literary – and made possible the Renaissance.

It’s a point worth taking on board, because while first-time visitors to the Emirates might expect a staid and old-fashioned society they soon find the exact opposite.

It’s a vibrant and cosmopolitan milieu, where personal development is reckoned a major part of a good university’s syllabus, along with scientific enterprise and personal initiative. It’s evidently anything but dull.

Such a university glories in “can do” philosophy, and at the AUS a mechanical engineering degree will involve design “in the classroom – with projects that in the past have included creating a Formula One racing car.

Fun, yes, but never frivolous, because the real challenge, as stated in the syllabus, is to design with a close eye on limited resources, always seeking to gain the best result within realistic constraints.

Meanwhile the main thrust of study, as this institution’s name implies, is of course American – immediately connecting study with an international nexus of professional endeavour spanning every continent.

It doesn’t necessarily add up to a “better” experience than you could hope to find in Scotland or other favoured academic destinations – much clearly depends on an individual’s personal objectives - but it perhaps illustrates the real diversity of choice now available in a world where the concept of “foreign” appears increasingly relative.

It seems the old limitations on where educated Scots could realistically hope to study - and truly gain from the experience – may no longer need to apply.