Student Solutions- Spending your loan

I often find that money burns a hole in my pocket. When I checked my balance after my loan came through and I had over a thousand pounds I immediately wanted to purchase a luxury pet such as a pelican, a slow loris or perhaps one of those cats with squashed faces. For most undergraduate students their loan is the largest amount of money they have ever had access to. I imagine, that like me, temptation to spend it on things they have always wanted is all too great. On top of this the banks don’t exactly encourage responsible spending, with the ridiculous overdraft offers on the student accounts luring students into debt, I decided to stay with my normal saving account to avoid temptation. However the bank had created another way for me to be irresponsible with my money. I had been planning on creating a standing order, which would allow me to live on a set amount of money each week, but apparently I was not deemed worthy of this option as I had ‘the wrong account’. Now I have to log on to digital banking every week and manually transfer my funds. Every time I do this I contemplate and then transfer how much money I’m likely to spend in the week when I originally wanted to be living on a budget.
On the surface this doesn’t really sound like much of a problem but if you don’t budget you could fall into some expensive habits whether its buying expensive brands of food, regular nights out or a crippling crack addiction you’ll find that your spending more money than you realise. If you don’t realise or you fail to address your overspending you’ll eventually find yourself surviving off your house/flatmates left over and out of date meals, wallowing in your own self-pity, reduced to performing degrading acts in the high street for small change. Your life will get gradually worse until the next payment of your loan. At this point some will realise the error of their ways, others will go out and buy the cat with the squashed face and the vicious cycle will continue.
At university were lucky that you can make these mistakes and not end up having to wash your clothes in public toilets providing you only make the mistakes once, as well as getting a degree were teaching ourselves how to look after ourselves. Your student loan will probably be the best loan you get in your entire life, you have no interest and you don’t have to start paying it back until your earning over £15,000, and even then you pay it back gradually. Make the most of it, go out and treat yourself with it, but just remember to make sure you have enough to survive comfortably on.

Student Solutions- Korean housemates do's and don'ts

Admittedly the title makes this blog seem like its aimed at a fairly niche audience but I’m sure my ideas will apply to any foreign student you may be sharing a flat/house with. First of all and most importantly don’t assume that your South Korean flat mates are lying about coming from the south due to the red stars they put on their milk. After not mistaking them for communists make sure you don’t ensue in seeing the shared living area as land that they may be invading and definitely don’t devise a counter attack after they invite a few of their Korean friends around one night.
Ok well those initial points may have only been relevant if you are sharing with South Korean people and even then I don’t know if they’re as relevant as I thought they were. Sharing a flat/house with someone who speaks minimal English can be quite difficult, especially when you set off on the wrong foot.
After finding it hard to hold a conversation with my South Korean flatmates I didn’t really speak to them much after I first met them. This was a wrong move and was most probably the reason why ‘Patrick’ hated me for a short while. It became apparent after one night me, and the two English people I share with, had some friends over and got quite merry. At around five I was in particularly good spirits and thought it would be a good idea to turn up the volume. Shortly after this an angry shirtless Patrick came in and turned off the music, at which point we remembered that they lived here and felt a bit guilty. A couple of days later when I next saw him I did apologise, but he didn’t really acknowledge me and for the following week on the rare occasion I would see him, he glared at me. This is mostly due to no attempt at conversation with him. If you don’t speak to your flat/house mates and they are in the minority they hide in their rooms and you have no idea whether they are in or not. Not talking to them also means you don’t know what days they have early starts, whether or not they are planning on having friends around and pretty much everything else about them, so despite it being awkward when you have to ask them to repeat what they said and vice versa, I advise talking to your foreign flat/house mates more often. Think of it like this, the more you talk to them the better there English will get, then you might become friends and stay up getting merry and playing loud music with them. It is easy to forget but some foreign students have travelled thousands of miles to come and study in a completley alien environment. Unsurprisingly they can often feel very isolated and alone. So even though, sometimes you may find it difficult, try and make them feel at home in the flat with you and eventually the pub too.