Studying in the UK: A Guide for International Students - Assignment Example

?Studying in the UK Introduction Throughout history, people have often been motivated to decide and choose based on their expectation of various benefits and outcomes. In fact, before any effort is made, a person often considers the probability of that effort yielding the desired or expected outcome. This is because man is a rational being. For example, if a student thinks as follows: ‘‘if I enroll into a UK institution for my studies, I would have an enriched learning experience and many opportunities for travel’’ he or she would have a high expectancy (Lee, 2007). Applying the above theory to this coursework discourse, we can also assert that students have an expectation of what studying in the UK institutions should offer them. On the issue of studying in the United Kingdom, this present coursework mainly intends to investigate the extent to which students have become aware of financial issues that are faced with students who are joining universities. Therefore, the coursework will give information and advice on what first year undergraduate should expect to spend their money on when they arrive at the university and a rough estimate of these costs. Additionally, the coursework will highlight on the sources of finance that are available to students. Students’ expenditure budget According to Davey (2008), students learning at UK institutions are faced with a budget as they are supposed to cater for their needs and cover their own expenses, this more in particular for students are boarding at their learning institutions. Therefore, for first year undergraduate students the first thing that they should learn is financial management and proper budgeting in order to go through the entire term without financial hurdles and be able to fully concentrate on their studies. Among the common expenditure that students are faced with, include rent, food, communication (mobile/ internet), student supplies, council tax, transport, utilities, and banking charges such as opening a UK account. Estimate of a student budget For first year students who are going to undertake a course that runs for three years, the common budget estimates are presented in the table below. A 3 years course Amount in GBP Annual fees 2500 The living costs Books 62 Clothes 178 Concerts/ cinema 50 Travel home 50 Monthly expenditure Rent 340 Bar/restaurant bills 77 Food 130 Mobile phone 36 Transport 12 Shopping 69 Households bills 65 Other miscellaneous 20 Total Amount 37, 524 Based on this total amount that students will spend for their entire 3 years course, the annual amount that students will be required to have is 12508, on per term basis the required amount is 4168.33 while on monthly basis it is 1042.33. Evans (2011) stated that for students studying in the UK, there are various sources of finance that they can exploit in order to cover for their expenses and this excluded funds that can be provided for by their parents or guardians. Among the available sources, include student loans, grants that are offered annually, earning from part-time work, and holiday jobs. The estimate amounts that students could generate from these sources are as follows; Students’ possible income Student loan plus grant per year 6000 Part-time work 60 Holiday jobs 2500 Total 8560 The annual expenditure budget for students as it was noted was 12,508 and the rough estimates for students’ possible income per year is 8560 in total. Therefore, it means that on annual basis students will have a shortfall of 3948. This shortfall could either be covered by a funds received from parents or income earned from additional part time jobs and holidays jobs. However, it is of essence to note that for students to engage too much in jobs is highly likely to interfere with their education and they may end up have dwindling performances. The other key expense that was not included on the budget is healthcare costs for the students. This was intentionally excluded because of the fact that healthcare cost for students is also charged as part of the total school fees, which means that if a student incurs any health expenditure the cost incurred will be deducted from his or her healthcare fee that was included in the per-term fee. Additionally, bank-opening fee was not included on the overall budget because banks do not currently charge any fee for account opening in order to attract many customers and therefore, this is a cost that students are not likely to incur. Managing expenses As it has already being noted above, that despite of the available sources of income for students they will still have a shortfall in their overall annual budget and therefore, skills in managing expenses comes in handy since they will need to be accountable for every coin that they access and they cannot afford any wastage. More often than not, most students discover that earning huge income is not enough without having in place practical ways for cutting down expenses and managing the outgoes. Students seeking for ways to achieve this goal usually seek out (both within and outside the institution) ways for achieving them. On the other hand, some schools have successfully set up ways for assisting students from running into financial troubles by making available user-friendly resources for this purpose. For instance, the University of Bedfordshire and the University of Sheffield have made considerable effort in making available useful tools to help students manage their expenses. Student are expected to take advantage of provisions such as student discounts, young person rail cards, budget, cheap communication tools like Skype, facebook, emails for communicating with family rather using the telephone, which is costly more so if it is not a local call (Macmillan and Weyers, 2010). There are many benefits students stand to gain while working in the UK as they continue with their studies and one of them is earning extra income. However, a more critical examination would probably reveal that some students get distracted along the way thereby failing in achieving the primary reasons. This is why schools are mandated to report any student who misses classes consistently without any genuine reason to the United Kingdom Border Agency. References Davey, G. (2008) The International Student’s Survival Guide: How to Get the Most from Studying at a UK University; Sage Publications Ltd Evans, C. (2011) Studying in the UK: A Guide for International Students, Trotman Lee, S. (2007). Vroom’s expectancy theory and the public library customer motivation model. Emerald Group Publishing Limited This is money. (2013). Student Budget Calculator: what to spend and how to fund it. Retrieved from: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/studentfinance/article-1633418/Student- budget-calculator-spend-fund-it.html. Accessed on [06.10.2013] Macmillan, K. and Weyers, J. (2010) Study Skills for International Students: A Handbook for Studying in UK; Prentice Hall Read More