How do student survive?

olly300

Flickering_Ember wrote: »

I don't go out clubbing, and I work 20-40 hours a week on top of my course to make ends meet at the moment. I think most students really should get a job as it makes them more employable when they go for an actual job after graduating; all experience is worth something transferrable.

Depends on what sort of company they are aiming at.

One of my nephew's has done work experience with a large firm and I've done sport with other people on graduate schemes from large firms.

All of them have said that none of the companies they have worked for or done work experience at are interested in the job at the supermarket or whatever you did to stay out of debt.

They have all been interested in the sports, muscial instruments and other societies the person has been involved in at university plus work experience that is relevant to the company. To get the job the people have been involved in at least 3 out of sports, orchestras, amateur dramatics etc where they were involved in an organisational position in one, at the same time plus have work experience in the area and have a minimum 2.1 degree.

Simon11

The reason I'm working so much is that I'm trying to save to get a house once I get a full time graduate job. If I'm not doing anything at home, I might as well work . So for example I've been doing a 6 hour shift at work before going in for 2 hours of lectures. In real life you do 8 hours at work, so this is nothing.

I am lucky that I do find my course rather easy. With regards to Olly and further reading, there isn't a need to do so on my course. All the answers for my exam papers are in the material provided by the lectures. For my second year at Uni, I turned up for all my lectures and worked really hard. I didn't once buy, visit the library or use a textbook but instead spend time looking at the teachers lecture notes and got a first.

I'm at uni to get the best mark possible, this mostly involes learning how to answer the exam papers rather than do extra research and looking further into the subject.

olly300

Simon11 wrote: »

The reason I'm working so much is that I'm trying to save to get a house once I get a full time graduate job. If I'm not doing anything at home, I might as well work . So for example I've been doing a 6 hour shift at work before going in for 2 hours of lectures. In real life you do 8 hours at work, so this is nothing.

In real life you do anything from 4 to 16 hours at work depending what profession you are in.

Simon11 wrote: »

I am lucky that I do find my course rather easy. With regards to Olly and further reading, there isn't a need to do so on my course. All the answers for my exam papers are in the material provided by the lectures. For my second year at Uni, I turned up for all my lectures and worked really hard. I didn't once buy, visit the library or use a textbook but instead spend time looking at the teachers lecture notes and got a first.

I'm at uni to get the best mark possible, this mostly involes learning how to answer the exam papers rather than do extra research and looking further into the subject.

I wonder what course you are doing.

There are lots of plenty of courses and jobs that follow on from them where it isn't simply enough to just learn enough to pass the exam.
In addition if you don't learn how to teach yourself and how to research a topic you will get stuck once you are in employment.

Oh and lots of people I know who did really well passing exams just scraped a pass in their dissertations. The ones who did well read around the subject and showed they did.

ViolaLass

Simon11 wrote: »

I am lucky that I do find my course rather easy. With regards to Olly and further reading, there isn't a need to do so on my course. All the answers for my exam papers are in the material provided by the lectures. For my second year at Uni, I turned up for all my lectures and worked really hard. I didn't once buy, visit the library or use a textbook but instead spend time looking at the teachers lecture notes and got a first.

I'm at uni to get the best mark possible, this mostly involes learning how to answer the exam papers rather than do extra research and looking further into the subject.

Reading this makes me really sad. Do you like the subject you're studying? Also, do you have to write any essays? The tutor's notes wouldn't have been enough reading for my essays, by far.

Simon11

I really enjoy my course as its simple to master and the course is based on Economics, maths and IT modules. So more eggs in different baskets! However I feel that what I've learnt in my course will only help abit in my future career. However without doing my course, I would have never got my fantastic work placement which will give me a big boast for my future career I've just applied for my first grad job and feel that without being arrogant I should be able to get an interview as I have many things on my CV which others simply won't have

There are hardly any Essays (Mostly projects, exams and creating software) on my course and for dissertation; we don't get to choose our project. We get the choice to do 5 different streams. Once you've done the minimum for the project, the rest of the marks come from further developing the software in the area that you find interesting. This part will require further reading and is the part I’m mostly looking forward to.

Most other course I know have to think about what they wish to do their major project on, which is a task in itself!

Its more important with uni to work hard to get a job at the end and a good qualifcation, rather than knowing tons about the subject!

tetra-xo

olly300 wrote: »

Depends on what sort of company they are aiming at.

Completely agree. I doubt that when I have job interviews they're going to be interested in whether I worked part-time or not.


My course involves 20 weeks of clinical placement. This is working 8.45-5 in a hospital. The placements could be anywhere up to around 80 miles away. This makes getting a job really hard as for half the year, we might be required to move away.

I get less student loan as an NHS funded student than most non NHS funded students do and without a lot of help from my parents, I wouldn't have survived last year because of the amount of travelling I had to do.

I also have 23.5 hours of lectures a week which only touch the surface on subjects covered in my exams, yet I'm trying to desperately find a job so that I can save to do my elective placement in India. Hopefully, my social life will be the only thing that suffers. A lot of students need to remember that you're at university to get a degree. Going out and getting drunk is a part of university life, but it's not the reason why you're there.

Renya

misswadey wrote: »

I do have to disagree with you stating University owned accomodation is cheaper than private house sharing. My accomodation in first year was nearly £6000 and that was catered (obviously this also included bills) but for the past 2 years have lived in rented accomodation and I find choosing your own gas/electricity tarrifs and food shopping sensibly make the money last a lot longer.

Wow, that's quite a lot, mine's £3700 for the year and I'm in London, that also includes £675 worth of bills between us though, if we go over that we have to pay. I'm not sure if mine is catered or not though, we do have a cleaner who comes once a week.

Do you find living off-campus is any better to living in uni accommodation? I was thinking about staying home in my second year and commuting each day (obviously paying the parents a bit of rent )

Oldernotwiser

Simon11 wrote: »

I'm at uni to get the best mark possible, this mostly involes learning how to answer the exam papers rather than do extra research and looking further into the subject.

What a sad indictment of our education system and the people who now go to university.

The_One_Who

Simon11 wrote: »

I am lucky that I do find my course rather easy. With regards to Olly and further reading, there isn't a need to do so on my course. All the answers for my exam papers are in the material provided by the lectures. For my second year at Uni, I turned up for all my lectures and worked really hard. I didn't once buy, visit the library or use a textbook but instead spend time looking at the teachers lecture notes and got a first.

I'm at uni to get the best mark possible, this mostly involes learning how to answer the exam papers rather than do extra research and looking further into the subject.

:eek: Every subject should be requiring extra reading, even ones like maths. My experience of economics is that is requires a lot of extra reading. At my university and in my department, using only lecture notes would get you a low 2.2 and only if it was well-written.

johnswife

My daughter just rang to say she has been offered a job at HMV, 25hrs a week. It includes weekends but not sure how she will fit it all in.
She is waiting to hear from Argos and also Debenhams.

My other daughter has applied for "hundreds" of jobs, her next interview is for a kitchen assistant so washing up?