Studying in the UK (3 Viewers)

[Desmond]

Take criterias such as city, location, nightlife, student atmosphere, ... more into consideration for your LLB.
You'll study for a long time there, so we don't want you to become a frustrated over worked nerd. Being a student is far more than attending classes, writing papers and exams...

That's my opinion.

Oxford and Cambridge, as far as I know, are generally "study towns" where there is very little to do other than the occasional trip to the pub down the street. The colleges in London are a lot more happening, unsurprisingly either. That said most undergrads do travel all over the UK in their spare time.

 

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[Desmond]

Not entirely false actually. A general consensus is that most universities and education in general in England is relatively easy and of a low level compared to the rest of western-Europe.

Unfortunately however the pursuit of tertiary education is a very pragmatic one. As Geof correctly pointed out as opposed to quality of education the reputation of your university is a commonly used yardstick for measuring the worth of your degree, and in that department the UK is extremely well represented on a global scale. Their closest contender in Europe is France and they're a rather distant second.

 

[ZhiXin]

I presume that you are still in the military Desmond.

I know that the exchange rate is rather high, so save up as much as possible as I know the price for food is high. Don't forget to bring more clothes, as chilly winters are expected, but the good thing is you can experience 4 seasons

Don't rule out Imperial College of London either.


At least you can get down to town and catch an EPL match.

 

[Desmond]

Don't rule out Imperial College of London either.

Imperial is like the MIT of the UK, and isn't known for its arts or law faculties unfortunately.

 

[Martin]

Just curious, but do you get a scholarship for this or do you plan to crack open that piggybank?

 

[Desmond]

For now its going to be self-financed, though I would obviously love to obtain a scholarship. I do have peers who are also going to the UK who will be paid (on top of fully sponsored fees and an allowance) to take the same course. Lucky bastards. :biggrin:

 

[Martin]

So what's your budget for this? Something like 20k/y?

 

[ZhiXin]

1 yr should amount to 25K-30K SGD from what my parents told me, you forgot to include the currency Martin, it is important.

And I dunno if they are exagerrating

Anyway the currency exchange rate is 1 SGD to 0.336 UK Pound right now

 

[Desmond]

All told I'm looking at a budget of roughly 25k pounds a year. Which is a real bummer but couldn't have expected anything less anyway.

 

[Martin]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Insane money. ZhiXin: I meant the local currency.

In contrast school here in the Netherlands is dirt cheap. €1.5k/y

 

[Desmond]

1 yr should amount to 25K-30K SGD from what my parents told me, you forgot to include the currency Martin, it is important.

I don't see how you could arrive at that figure to be honest. Fees alone for classroom based courses (ie Humanities, Social Sciences) are set around 9 to 13k pounds, laboratory courses (Medicine, Dentistry) twice that. Lodging comes up to around 100 pounds a week. Then there's food etc. In SGD that would be a minimum of 70 thousand quid.

 

[ZhiXin]

It will not be that much of a problem if you are born with a silver spoon, but that's really a lot of money to be spent, and you have to perform well consistently knowing the stress foreign students need to bear.

The sum that I come up with is what I have been told, but I never expect it is much more higher than I thought. On a personal level I'm not one of those that put education to that much of a priority since I know what I wanna do in my life when I return to HK permanently.

Another solution is to go for a scholarship, the minus point is that you always need to give up something and fulfill certain critirias

 

[Desmond]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Insane money. ZhiXin: I meant the local currency.

In contrast school here in the Netherlands is dirt cheap. €1.5k/y

I do suppose it can't be helped. The UK universities are base a large part of their funding on the leeching of exorbitant course fees for international students. Its made worse by the fact that in the UK the college league tables are everything and heavy emphasis is placed on the raw amount of money spent by the college per student.

In other words, the more you are made to pay the college, the better the college will look in the rankings every year.

 

[Martin]

And since the schools maintain their reputation this way, and people actually buy this reputation, they can sustain their lame business model. Yeah, it's quite sad.

 

[Ascension]

Well, England is a nice country. I'm sure you will enjoy lots of good times there.

I know quite a few people who went to England for a temporary basis and they all came back happy and satisfied with their experience.