Graduate Loan Advice Needed!!!

_dodo

Hi everyone,

New to the forums and the big bad world of banking. After a frankly depressing 2 years from graduating with my first class English degree - trying and failing to get a firm job, I got a place at a decent Uni for my Masters and have decided to continue my education.

The chance of getting the funding assistance I've applied for is low, so I'm weighing up loans. I bank with HSBC and have 1,500 overdraft that like alot of people I'm living off but no credit card, though they tried to push one onto me (along with a mortgage.) Like alot of graduates, I've had no firm job and am unemployed with a fantastic education that's doing nothing for me, unless I put more money into it.

My career goal is to get published and lecture. This will only happen if I do MA then PhD and have solid teaching experience under my belt. I plan to get that by teaching English in Japan. The draw back? Going through a legitimate company (JET programme) takes a year (apply Sept, interviews January, go August/September) so I'd be doing my MA then going to Japan to start paying my loan back. Will the bank look negatively on this? What time scales are you expected to pay a loan back by, or is this something the bank and you agree together?

With my degree, I don't need a teaching qualification but I want to do a month long course so I feel more confident about language tuition, so I am going to do a TEFL qualification this year (costing around 500 pounds.) Could they factor this into the loan or is it solely for one course? Which banks offer the best services to students? My experiences of HSBC are not great so I'm very reluctant to talk to them, yet alone take this step with them.

Someone I know suggested I look into a Career Development Loan but I'm not sure how this differs from a bank loan. Any ideas?

All replies are welcome and I will read every one.

Jo

CLAPTON

I'm not sure what skills MA and PhD require but why not do a bit of research about CDLs by googling 'career development loans'

_dodo

Gee thanks Clapton. What a useful, friendly answer?

Yes my MA will require excellent research skills - of the literary kind.
Way to kick someone when they are down.

Sure I am far from financially minded but there's no need to be patronising. Obviously I've been on the site but the information I've read on the CDL site hasn't really helped me, mainly because it suggests that you can't get one if you are awarded funding toward fees, which if I am, leaves me only with the loan option.

Just wanted advice from people who had been in the same situation as me. I've posted for help - isn't that what this site is for? Anyone have anything constructive to add, please?

ILW

Bit sensitive are we not.
Could try getting a job for a year and saving.

_dodo

Not at all ILW, I was just hoping for some useful advice.

The job situation is rubbish for thousands of people at the moment, myself included. I worked for a year after graduating and saved about nine hundred pounds to pay off my overdraft. Then my contract ran out and they cut down our workforce significantly.

I've tried saving for my MA from lesser paid jobs over the past two years but like alot of people, money goes out as soon as it goes in and I crept back into my overdraft bit by bit. Getting a loan will help me go abroad and teach, coming back to England with the experience you just can't get in this country.

No wonder young people are so disillusioned, what support we get.

lawsofnature

Dodo, do you really need to spend time in Japan to further your career, or take the TEFL qualification?

Since you want to pursue a PhD, I assume you want to be an academic at university level.

Teaching English in Japan is really not going to lend much weight to achieving this goal...loads of students do this as a 'year out' activity/career break. The teaching experience you will need is in higher education, teaching UG or PG modules, not Japanese students wanting to learn English (it won't impress).

Your main goal will be achiveing the MA and PhD in order to pursue an academic career. Your best bet in terms of finding money will be to look for a 3+1 funding opportunity via one of the research councils. Since you have a first (and assuming it's from a decent uni), you'll have a very good chance of getting funding. However, English is ultra competitive, so you'd be wiser finding a crap job to pay the bills for now, and concentrating on working on your research proposal in order to win that funding or a studentship.

The need to teach in Japan really does seem a superfluous pursuit, and imo, it's not worth getting in debt for.

The basic difference between a CDL and a standard loan is that you don't immediately start paying back the CDL until after you finish the course. Beware the CDL doesn't really offer a good deal.

lawsofnature

I should add, I see you're with HSBC, they do offer Professional Studies Loans, but you'd have to show that your course is in the pursuit of a 'professional career'. They used to be quite flexible about this, but I'm not sure if it now just covers law, medicine, etc. This loan is very good though, they will defer it for a couple of years.

CLAPTON

_dodo wrote: »

Gee thanks Clapton. What a useful, friendly answer?

Yes my MA will require excellent research skills - of the literary kind.
Way to kick someone when they are down.

Sure I am far from financially minded but there's no need to be patronising. Obviously I've been on the site but the information I've read on the CDL site hasn't really helped me, mainly because it suggests that you can't get one if you are awarded funding toward fees, which if I am, leaves me only with the loan option.


Just wanted advice from people who had been in the same situation as me. I've posted for help - isn't that what this site is for? Anyone have anything constructive to add, please?

you are quite right, my reply was a little un-necessary.

anyway the difference between a CDL and an ordinary Graduate loan is the a Graduate loan is just a loan for graduates (a marketing device).
So the bank will be looking at their 'normal loan 'criteria. Basically they want you to start paying the loan back immediately so they will need evidence of an income stream.
A CDL, as you have already researched, is a government sponsored deal that allows payments to start after the course is finished. I wasn't aware of the restriction you mentioned.

Dabooka

lawsofnature wrote: »

Dodo, do you really need to spend time in Japan to further your career, or take the TEFL qualification?

...

The need to teach in Japan really does seem a superfluous pursuit, and imo, it's not worth getting in debt for.

QUOTE]

Totally agree with lawsofnature on this, I've had to short list for some jobs recently and the amount of CVs with TEFL and related teaching experience was high, but quite frankly it added little to fulfilling the role (which was lecturing incidently). I can't help but feel the going to Japan is a smokescreen mate, either get serious about teaching or go to Japan, but don't confuse the two. Seems to me the Masters-PHD-published author route is a long path with little option for self discovery anyway.....

PS The job offer went to someone who's travelled the world on their TEFL and loved every minute of it! :T

_dodo

Lawsofnature,

:j Hooray a good reply!!! Thanks so much. You've said some really interesting stuff and I can see where you are coming from, you ask all the right questions.

Q "do you really need to spend time in Japan to further your career, or take the TEFL qualification? Since you want to pursue a PhD, I assume you want to be an academic at university level. Teaching English in Japan is really not going to lend much weight to achieving this goal...loads of students do this as a 'year out' activity/career break. The teaching experience you will need is in higher education, teaching UG or PG modules, not Japanese students wanting to learn English (it won't impress)."

Yes, I want to be a professional scholar and teach in higher education. The weaker side of my English degree is Language. It focused on literary analysis and theory, so my short term plan is to do the TEFL to strengthen this (and my teaching ability.) So this wouldn't just be for Japan, it would benefit me all round. As you say, the main experience I need to become a professor is to teach in UK higher education. Getting a position within the UK as an academic is, for me, only feasible at PhD level. My MA will show my academic strength - what I'm lacking at the moment is experience. Teaching in Japan should cover this. Fair enough it is language tuition to a class full of Japanese students - but it is experience nonetheless. Moving abroad will make me be more independent and give me scope, when I come back, to talk about a year long connection with an employer that I just haven't got here.

Q "Your main goal will be achiveing the MA and PhD in order to pursue an academic career. Your best bet in terms of finding money will be to look for a 3+1 funding opportunity via one of the research councils. Since you have a first (and assuming it's from a decent uni), you'll have a very good chance of getting funding. However, English is ultra competitive, so you'd be wiser finding a crap job to pay the bills for now, and concentrating on working on your research proposal in order to win that funding or a studentship."

This is too true. I spent months last year working in a terrible job while writing my application for AHRC funding but I wasn't selected (found out last week.) I've got a place at York, coming from Leeds and my dissertation has come on leaps and bounds. Two other funding sources I've applied for offer a thousand pounds or upto five hundred pounds. Even with either of them, I still need a postgraduate loan. Going to Japan will just make me feel secure enough that I can pay this loan back. I used to work as a freelance researcher but the company I worked for introduced a recruitment freeze and I was left in the cold, so I am very cautious of that line of work now. What does Japan offer me? A guaranteed, well paid, life changing job - something that no matter how I hard try, I just can't get over here.

(- - What exactly does the 3 + 1 funding op mean?)

"The need to teach in Japan really does seem a superfluous pursuit, and imo, it's not worth getting in debt for."

I truly want to go out there to write, learn about a new culture and spend a year planning my PhD. And I wouldn't be in debt because of Japan, sure the TEFL costs five hundred pounds - but the MA costs a hell of alot more and having that TEFL is a sure fire way of getting it paid back because the JET programme practically throw a job at you if you have an English degree and a TEFL.

"The basic difference between a CDL and a standard loan is that you don't immediately start paying back the CDL until after you finish the course. Beware the CDL doesn't really offer a good deal."

This is what I'm mainly interested in. Obviously I'll have to wait and see if I've got any funding contributions, because you can't get CDL with those. But if I don't I will seriously be weighing up the pros and cons of the CDL and the commercial loan. Of which, loan wise, I'm pretty lost. I am very reluctant to go to HSBC, I know they are a worldwide bank and I can easily continue to use them in Japan but I just don't like the way they work. Can you just book an appointment at any bank to have a conversation about a loan? If they say no, will it damage my credit check?

I'm just not sure what makes a good loan and I don't want to go for the first one I'm offered.

Thanks again for the reply,
Jo

_dodo

Dabooka wrote: »

Totally agree with lawsofnature on this, I've had to short list for some jobs recently and the amount of CVs with TEFL and related teaching experience was high, but quite frankly it added little to fulfilling the role (which was lecturing incidently). I can't help but feel the going to Japan is a smokescreen mate, either get serious about teaching or go to Japan, but don't confuse the two. Seems to me the Masters-PHD-published author route is a long path with little option for self discovery anyway.....

PS The job offer went to someone who's travelled the world on their TEFL and loved every minute of it! :T

Okay,

When you put it like that, I do sort of see the point. But what if I didn't go to Japan, I did my MA and then couldn't find a job to pay of my loan? It may be a 'smokescreen' but God would it give me financial support for a year. I have no support from family financially and I'm fully responsible for taking a loan, so I'd be incredibly daft to take one out without a concrete plan that I could pay it back with.

I am very serious about teaching, I have experience as an Assistant English Tutor and a student Mentor. The problem is that this hasn't been enough to get me into teaching English in the UK. The first was for a month, residential, teaching Japanese students English in the UK and the second was volunteered with a few students in a local school for over 6 months about 3 hours a week. When I do my PhD I want to teach students at Uni and honestly, along with getting published - that is my main goal. I'm certainly not in this for the money, I know its not a great paid realm!!!

But this is my problem - it doesn't matter what job I get an interview for, they always say 'Excellent grades - not enough experience' and at this moment in time, I'm not even qualified to teach kids yet alone young adults/Higher Ed students.

So what do you think would be the ideal way to get teaching experience for a prospective professor? Academically, it is out of my league to teach Higher Education now. I won't be able to teach at college level until after MA and I had my heart set on Japan because I really thought it would help. After all, you picked the TEFLer for the job, right? Probably wrong.

Were there any qualifications that stood out on the app forms or was it purely experience that made for a better candidate? Finding that experience is near impossible at the moment but it is all employers want.

Thanks for your reply - sort of! You've made things difficult for me in terms of Japan but this is possibly the right kind of difficult...if you get what I mean?!

Jo