Impressed Uni funding

[Ormorof]

i switched from chemistry to engineering because chemistry was too hard

not to mention the 9am - 6pm every day + course work + lab reports + essays, every time i went to a party i had to spend a weekend catching up

i lived with a philosophy student who in comparison was at uni for two hours every two weeks

if you can do it and can do it well Chemistry should pay off nicely at the end though!

 

[DaGaffer]

Nah - Engineering/Physics are the worst - Chemistry had a lot of hours doing practicals but wasnt too bad theorywise. Saw lots of bright kids fail the first year in Electrical Engineering and the hours were insane.

This. I actually have a HNC in mechanical and production Engineering; but I avoided it like the plague when I went to Uni; and I was right to.

i switched from chemistry to engineering because chemistry was too hard

not to mention the 9am - 6pm every day + course work + lab reports + essays, every time i went to a party i had to spend a weekend catching up

i lived with a philosophy student who in comparison was at uni for two hours every two weeks

if you can do it and can do it well Chemistry should pay off nicely at the end though!

Ah but its all the reading you have to do. Its very time intensive doncha-know?

 

[gohan]

I enjoy chemistry, so I'll probably find it more interesting doing 25 hours a week on that than doing say 12 hours on something that I just need to get through. Also at 26(next week :<) I'm not going to be out every single night, I don't have the problem of it being my first time away from home. I'll still be very social other wise I'll miss out on loads but I'm old enough to know my limits and manage my time

 

[Job]

I dont think there is a huge difference in living costs, maybe insurance and eating out, but house prices are the killer, you can buy a terrace here for 45 grand, or 60 grand if you don't want crackheads next door.
300 grand will but you a huge 5 bedroom victorian house in a really nice area.

 

[Jeros]

Its the middle class kids with parents that won't pay the new fees that lose out. There needs to be an option for them get loans and grants on them rather than their parents, same as "independent" students do. Long and the short of it is, if your under 23 and have not been living away from home for three years you are not allowed to get a loan or grant in your own name as your parents "earn too much" regardless if they are willing to pay for you or not.

Unless its changed now.

 

[Chilly]

I dont think there is a huge difference in living costs, maybe insurance and eating out, but house prices are the killer, you can buy a terrace here for 45 grand, or 60 grand if you don't want crackheads next door.
300 grand will but you a huge 5 bedroom victorian house in a really nice area.

Where is this land of plenty?!

 

[Job]

its called the north and of course house prices follow the earnings of the locals

 

[Chilly]

its called the north and of course house prices follow the earnings of the locals

Aha, but if you can somehow earn a London wage oop north the result could be some kind of magic! I must ponder this.

 

[rynnor]

Aha, but if you can somehow earn a London wage oop north the result could be some kind of magic! I must ponder this.

Its called the Public Sector...

 

[gohan]

Its the middle class kids with parents that won't pay the new fees that lose out. There needs to be an option for them get loans and grants on them rather than their parents, same as "independent" students do. Long and the short of it is, if your under 23 and have not been living away from home for three years you are not allowed to get a loan or grant in your own name as your parents "earn too much" regardless if they are willing to pay for you or not.

Unless its changed now.

you can apply for student finance without taking household income into account now (it basically means you get the bare minimum) so you get tution fee loan + 3.2k per year maintenance loan, but no grants or bursaries

 

[Aoami]

when I applied for student funding when I was 21 it was based on my parents income because I was under 26 even though I'd moved out at 18. I was ok as my parents are divorced and only my mums income got taken into account and she is a teacher so I got full grants etc. Both rules are ridiculous (if they had taken my dads income into account I wouldn't have got any extra grants but he wouldn't have given me any money as he is a tight cunt, so its irrelevant.)

 

[Chilly]

Its called the Public Sector...

Public sector my arse. I'm talking about actual money, not some graded 35k wank. I want four houses. With butlers...in bowler hats!

 

[Overdriven]

Public sector my arse. I'm talking about actual money, not some graded 35k wank. I want four houses. With butlers...in bowler hats!

Part of the reason I'm staying in Stafford, albeit I'm currently pissy with what I'm being paid considering I'm probably the only person in Staffordshire who knows how to configure, deploy, customise and maintain both SharePoint and Dynamics CRM. =|

 

[wolfeeh]

Tell me more about these ACA's. I'm looking for a career as I don't want to be a chef for the rest of my life. I have a good head for statistics, figures and analysis. Where is a good place to start doing a bit of reading?

Sod accountancy, do Nursing:> the chicks dig the uniform.

 

[wolfeeh]

well not really, I want it for free...... but as that's not an option the way it's set up is pretty manageable. As I said, no real risk I either earn more than I did before or I don't pay it back lol

It's a bit diff for me cause I don't live at home, haven't for like 4 years, been working full time more or less since I was 16, never earnt more than 17k per year so at 25 it's not like I had that much to lose, it's a bit of a gamble leaving my safe, comfortable job last year, but I fucking hated that job so I think it's well worth the minimal risk of being unemployed after uni (which won't happen to me because I'm not the type of person to ever be without a job)

remember though, if you do this degree and it turns out 5 years down the line you don't like it and decide to do another degree you will not be eligible for any grants or bursaries of any kind

 

[Moriath]

was so much easier when all you had to do was wait until you were 20 then apply for the maximum grant from your LEA take redundancy and have a piss up for a couple fo years before you had to do some work on your year out and then had a tax rebate to pay for your final year.

You are so funny saying 30 grand in debet after 3 years or whatever is ok when i got mine for nothing well i think i got a 800 quid lean for a new pc cause i wanted to play games ..

Glad i qualified 15 years ago

 

[Jeros]

Heh, hopefully I can get back into Edinburgh year after next.

People keep trying to tempt me back over the border, despite the fact that, when you do the numbers, it makes more sense to stay in Scotland considering where I am in my life right now.

"but but London!"

NO! I don't like London! Bugger orrrrf!

 

[rynnor]

Heh, hopefully I can get back into Edinburgh year after next.

People keep trying to tempt me back over the border, despite the fact that, when you do the numbers, it makes more sense to stay in Scotland considering where I am in my life right now.

"but but London!"

NO! I don't like London! Bugger orrrrf!

Isn't Edinburgh pretty damned expensive too though - its the London of Scotland?

 

[Jeros]

Isn't Edinburgh pretty damned expensive too though - its the London of Scotland?

Nope, its the same and sometimes cheaper than say Colchester that is 45 mins outside of London AND a shithole.

If you don't mind hopping on a bus for 5 mins to the city centre then you can leave very cheaply, it seems that no one in Edinburgh wants to commute anywhere....the pricing ranges drop massively as soon as you get 5 min out of the city centre. (Even purchase prices if your looking to buy outright).

There was some VERY cheap flats going on the sea front not so long ago, around the £300 a month mark, hell if you have a push bike you can be in the city centre from there in about 15 mins.

Studio/1 bed flats average £450 a month, sometimes higher, sometimes lower.


Its pretty good for Students too, friend of mine has a room in a flat for about £140 a month which is about 10 mins walk from the main Uni campus. My place is luxury modern flat at £600 between two people, i'm right next to the main high street (princes street) near a ton of clubs and takeaways, its awesome. Also students don't pay for water in Scotland.

There ARE expensive places, but there by no means the only choice.

 

[SheepCow]

but its still debt against your name and will be taken into account on any other loads / mortgages yiou want after you finish and do you still want to be paying it back when you are 40 heh

It's not, credit rating companies etc don't count student loans as credit

 

[rynnor]

It's not, credit rating companies etc don't count student loans as credit

The loan repayments will reduce the amount of mortgage repayment you can afford.

 

[SheepCow]

The loan repayments will reduce the amount of mortgage repayment you can afford.

That's true, what I mean is it doesn't count as a £25,000 debt -- i.e. if you could have £150,000 mortgage it won't cause them to only lend you £125,000

 

[Chilly]

Yeah but if you are -100 down per month that's still -100 you can afford on a mortgage, regardless of how big it is.

 

[Moriath]

When I took my mOrtgage out it was about 70 quid per 10k on a repayment. So if your paying 140 quid repayment on a loan that's 20k ish less you will be able to spend on your mortgage. So n a way it will limit what you can get. If not directly then indirectly.

 

[gohan]

but tbfh, only a moron who intends on going bankrupt would get a mortgage that they could only just afford.
realistically it shouldn't affect it at all. if you're taking home say 3k joint income it shouldn't matter if your mortgage is 500/600/900 whatever. you budget to your needs, that's like saying if you buy a nippy car and the insurance cost more you have to have a smaller house


all conjecture and anyone with half a financial brain won't be affected

 

[rynnor]

but tbfh, only a moron who intends on going bankrupt would get a mortgage that they could only just afford.

Actually when the markets rising it makes good sense and a lot of people did just that - its also the only way to get on the ladder in the more expensive area's.

 

[Moriath]

but tbfh, only a moron who intends on going bankrupt would get a mortgage that they could only just afford.
realistically it shouldn't affect it at all. if you're taking home say 3k joint income it shouldn't matter if your mortgage is 500/600/900 whatever. you budget to your needs, that's like saying if you buy a nippy car and the insurance cost more you have to have a smaller house


all conjecture and anyone with half a financial brain won't be affected

a 200k mortgage repayment will be somewhere around a grand i would guess and that in many areas is the bottom of the ladder in the south
unless you want a studio place or such even then they are well over 100k

when i started after uni i was on 28k and could just about stretch to 100k ish mortgage 95%

that was before all the shit hit the fan and house prices rocketed

i think you live in a world you look at through rose tinted glasses imo

 

[throdgrain]

This. I actually have a HNC in mechanical and production Engineering; but I avoided it like the plague when I went to Uni; and I was right to.



Ah but its all the reading you have to do. Its very time intensive doncha-know?

Why do you say you were right to avoid a mechanical engineering degree then?

 

[DaGaffer]

Why do you say you were right to avoid a mechanical engineering degree then?

Really hard course with poor rewards (in the UK). There are well paid engineering jobs obviously, but for an awful lot of engineers the route to a decent salary is management, so I decided to go straight down that route (and if you want to stay an engineer, in most cases you really need a masters degree or higher to do anything worthwhile these days). Besides, despite doing theoretically interesting stuff like designing bits of fighter jets and working in wind tunnels etc. I didn't find engineering that interesting. Much less opportunity for creativity than you'd think. (I still would have liked to have been a car designer, but even that is a case of designing door handles for fifteen years before you get to do anything interesting).

Same with electrical engineering. Every single person I knew who took elec eng ended up in IT, except one who went all the way to a PhD and now he designs satellites in California. Most of the ones who went into IT did well, but it seemed like a waste of 3-4 years at Uni doing something is "vocational" as elec eng if you're going to end up doing something completely different afterwards.

 

[throdgrain]

Really hard course with poor rewards (in the UK). There are well paid engineering jobs obviously, but for an awful lot of engineers the route to a decent salary is management, so I decided to go straight down that route (and if you want to stay an engineer, in most cases you really need a masters degree or higher to do anything worthwhile these days). Besides, despite doing theoretically interesting stuff like designing bits of fighter jets and working in wind tunnels etc. I didn't find engineering that interesting. Much less opportunity for creativity than you'd think. (I still would have liked to have been a car designer, but even that is a case of designing door handles for fifteen years before you get to do anything interesting).

Same with electrical engineering. Every single person I knew who took elec eng ended up in IT, except one who went all the way to a PhD and now he designs satellites in California. Most of the ones who went into IT did well, but it seemed like a waste of 3-4 years at Uni doing something is "vocational" as elec eng if you're going to end up doing something completely different afterwards.

I was going to say, my brother did a mechanical engineering degree at South Bank Poly (or whatever it's called now) at night school (or whatever it's call now) and he earns large money nowadays.