h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well done Z!

You have my true admiration for stating your position on this & many other matters. You don't do "Politically Correct Hallmark Cards"; I respect that.

--This too, needs saying here, not on instant messaging!

(go on, you can afford one!)

Terri.

Terri!

You know...when my grant dissapeared I never even though of dropping out. OK, I'm lucky, my parents were paying my rent...and contributing to the food supply every time I went home. But with a full student loan I managed, without resorting to evening work, live a full and suitably drunken life for the last two year, come out with a 2:1 and used my overdraft only once (well, I really had to have those posters you know! )

I'm now happily ensconced as a PhD student avoiding paying back the SLC due to not earning enough (and haven't for the last five years)
Overdraft still untouched and feeling no pain. But I do know students who spend the last week of the month eating beans and not doing hte washing cos they are at the end of their overdraft.

Maybe schools just need to teach folks how to actually manage money early in life???

Zantic A true Scot of stereotypical nature....

I am, unfortunately, one of the "poor middle class" students. In my case my parents financial assessment was made on the previous year's tax returns, which was before my mum retired and so the conribution the government expect my parents to make is totally unreasonable. Hopefully though when we are reassessed for next year my loan should go up. I hope.
Plus I'm not able to work part-time whilst at university, I really don't have time (plus my college would chuck me out if I tried). But I manage by dipping slightly into my overdraft at the end of each term then working to get rid of it. In this respect, at least, holidays running july-->october are a pure blessing!

oookay your college would chuck you out if you tried! that's disgusting what youdo with your free time is none of there business! are yousure? I mean if you have to work to pay theire over priced residency fees!!!


I was really worried this would offend people, have you enquired about the access fund? it sometimes can help when parents finacial circumstances change since the assessment, and aparently Oxbridge tends not to have lots of care leavers or single parents who are suposed to get priority for this..

I've always thought that I won't have time to work, but I know plently of student who do manage it on my course.. I tend to find if I have less time available i do less faffing around and more actual work.

One of my housemates works two night shifts a week at a care home and managed to do three a week when he was doing preclinical course, though he could get plently of work done on the shifts. He seems to always do better than me..

Freetime? My course doesn't really allow for that- and I know that sounds like I'm exagerating, but really I don't. We do get LOADS of freee time during holidays though to make up for it- but during term time... no way! Cambridge doesn't allow anyone to have a parrt-time job, since it WILL affect the quality of their work.

Well if suppose if it's really as intenise as you say, and there isplenty of time to earn money in the holidays. But still I wuold personally find that an unacceptably paternalistic attitude, I like the fact that my personal tutour doens't know my name! I like the fact that if I dont' turn up (which I do) no one will notice. Because then the dregs who can't be bothered working, and would only mess around, stay at home and stop getting in the way.

Also I feel I'm an adult, so it's not of thier business if I want to spend the entire week in bed.

Sorry that sounded like a rant, I didn't mean it at all.. hope I haven't offended you *worries*

No offence taken. I don't think they'd chuck you out exactly- i think i exagerate slightly when i said that. But they'd certainly notice i your work suddenly dropped in quality and want to know why.
Personally I like the personal touch, that I'm going for dinner at my supervisers' houses after exams and that I get to chat through any problems about anything with an "adult".
Essentially I can still decide to stay in bed for a week, but people will notice and if i'm wasting my time here then i'll not be encouraged to continue.

That sounds a lot more logical, I suppose the personal touch is nice, they keep trying to get it going here, most people would rather to go the pub with there mates than go for a meal with there tutour.

At my university, I have a lot of classes with only a handful of people in attendance. In these classes my lecturers often know my name, yet some of them still don't. It doesn't worry me too much either way, but the impersonal attitude here irritates me just a little bit. The lecturers and tutors are (when they can be understood) great people, but the university as a whole, especially those who are in control of the courses just view the students as a number. That irks me just a bit.

We have a different scheme here in Australia though, it is called HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) where the government pays for our tuition and then when we finish our degree we pay them back via higher taxes (only for those who attended a University) and other payments which we can choose to make. The only problem that I have with this scheme is that they are introducing some big changes in the next year or two. The first change is a 30% increase in fees. Since I am in the top bracket for fees (about AU$4000 per semester) this is going to become huge. The second big change has to do with the amount of time one can spend at uni. My course is a four year course, and due to some stuffing around in my second year, I failed a lot of subjects. It was something that I had to get out of my system. In the beginning of my third year I changed my major and had to pick up a lot of classes which I didn't have to do in my previous major. This is increasing my time at uni by a couple of years. Now here is my problem with that. 4 year course, a couple of years added on to that due to change of major and problems with first semester second year = about 5.5 - 6 years (roughly) The government are planning on kicking anyone who is attending university and studying a HECS course out after 5 years. I may not be able to finish my degree. I know that I only have myself to blame here, but a straight 5 years and you're out policy is not right in my opinion. I think the course length should be taken into account. I mean a 3 year course has the same 5 year cut off point as a 5 year one...

That is enough of my ranting...

Natai