What Students Say
Likes
- Curriculum of the course.
- Faculty went beyond limit to help you out.
- Ample resources for conducting good research.
Dislikes
- Diversification of the cohort- Majority of the cohort were either Chinese students or Indian/Pakistani. Majorly comprised of South East Asians.
- Career team is not of much help, could be improved. The answers given by them are more generic than specific to the requirement.
- Alumni networking is not being much promoted by the college; improvement in this could help in students landing good jobs in the UK as they may guide them well through the applications.
Course Curriculum
10
- On a scale of 10, the course was at difficulty of 09. The course had a mixed approach of both theoretical and practical learning.
Admission Experience
- Universities i applied to:-
- Lancaster University;- Admitted
- University of Bath;- Received admission letter
- Warwick University- Received conditional offer letter
- The University of Manchester- Received conditional offer letter
- University of Liverpool- Received offer letter
- Queens Mary University of London- Received offer letter
- University of Durham- Received offer letter
- Loughborough University- Received offer letter;
- Among the ones where I had applied, only Warwick and University of Manchester were the ones where I had received a conditional offer letter and the conditions were such that could not have been fulfilled within the given timeline. Hence, looking at my options, Lancaster university was the best choice in terms of academics, expenses and exposure.
- The curriculum of my course made me choose this college. The academic offering which Lancaster University was giving was more aligned with my interest than courses offered by other universities. The admission process was straight and simple, I had to fill up the application form and submit necessary documents (academic results, passport etc.)
- I had appeared for the IELTS exam and had received 7.5 bands in the exam. Overall admission process was smooth and fast in terms of receiving the outcome of my application as I had started very early in terms of applying to the colleges. I started with the applications in early November.
- I had applied for the September-October intake. Most of the universities take admission during this time only and so is the job market aligned to this academic cycle. Though some universities do offer January Intake, but this ain't a major intake for most of the universities and many do not offer intake in the month of January.
- The application takes 4-6 weeks to give a decision. If a student accepts the offer, they receive a CAS letter which is needed for the VISA. The home office may take 3-6 weeks to make a decision on the VISA. The whole admission process could take anywhere from 3-4 months from the start.
Class Schedule
10
- The class learnings were given as projects to be illustrated through practical live examples.
- The classes were little tight and more frequent in the first semester ranging from 4 hours to 8 hours of classes every day (2 hours session each)
- We had combined batch of MSc Finance and MSc accounting and Finance with a strength of 180 students. 40% of the batch were Indian students.
Faculty
10
- The faculty to student ratio was not that great. However, students used to get adequate timeslots from the faculties to clear their doubts.
- The course content is good enough for being job ready, but is not enough for landing job. Need to learn extra skills to get a job, especially the soft skills.
- My Faculty of Corporate finance is someone whom I admire the most, his teaching methodology was very practical.
Campus Life
10
- University had 09 colleges (accommodations) with 15-20 houses each in the campus.
- The campus had all kind of facilities available, be it from library, gym, Olympic size swimming pool, spa, sauna, different clubs (from country wise, religion wise, sport wise, and many more).
- Their were all kind of stores available from medical store to grocery, restaurants an all you need stores
- The campus used to celebrate all kinds of festivals from across the world.
Part Time Jobs
- There are only a handful of Teaching assistant, Research Assistant position available with not more than 10-15.
- The pay range is little higher than minimum wage ranging between 14-17 pounds.
- Other on campus jobs which are available could be waiter, store staff, campus ambassador etc.
- Maximum work hour allowed per week for immigrant students is 20 hours.
- Most of the students earn only minimum wage of GBP 10.77 at part time.
- It is a little difficult to secure part time at the initial period when students join campus as most of the people fill up the application for part time and they are not aware of what are the requirements for the part time job.
- There are online platforms where jobs are posted and most of the students can directly apply from there by just uploading their resume.
Placement
6
- About 80% of the batch had secured a job after completing their course, be it in UK or some other country.
- The average salary varies from place of employment. In the UK people are generally paid ~25,000-30,000 GBP.
- My batch faced many challenges at the time of placement as the economic condition was not that great and companies were reluctant on hiring immigrants. However, the situation has improved now and students are getting more opportunities now in terms of getting a job.
Accommodation
Off Campus
10
- I was staying at the university's accommodation, I found it through the university's website itself.
- I did not face my difficulty in terms of securing the accommodation as I had started my application well in time.
- I was paying GBP 117 per week and my accommodation was for 50 weeks.
- My accommodation was 5 mins away from my classroom and was inside the campus.
Exams
- I was required to submit the IELTS result for my admission which is an English proficiency exam.
- The Major documents required for admission process were: Academic certificates; Statement of Purpose, Letter of recommendation, CV, Passport, Proof of fund(while applying for visa), English proficiency certificate (could be IELTS result or declaration from your last university that the teaching was in English language}
Fees
- My college fee was ~GBP 25,360/- and additional of minimum GBP~12,000/- is required for accommodation and stay.
- Apart from that add another ~GBP 700-800 for VISA and ~GBP600 (round trip) for flight fare.
- Monthly expenses majorly includes of rental expenses which can range from GBP 500-700, grocery expenses from ~200-250 (depending how to eat: if you cook by yourself or eat outside this may increase and decrease).
Scholarship
- There are numerous scholarships offered by every university, ranging based on academic merit to international students.
- I had received a scholarship of GBP 5,000 for my tuition fees based on merit.
- Additionally, I had also received a scholarship from Jharkhand state government which covered my academic expenses, accommodation and all other expenses.
- Almost 40-50% of the cohort had received some kind of scholarship.
