How can my graduating son from the US live in the UK for a year with little money and a cell phone?
October 30th, 2009
David S asked:
He will have a small amount of cash. He is very smart, polite, and works hard. He wants to take this chance get out of the US and see more of the world. He would like to find a job and support himself. He has no family or friends there so he’ll be arriving totally alone. His great grandfather going back 11 generations is John Endicott from England. He needs cheap accomodation and access to any kind of work that will support his desire to live there for a year. Any info/experience/suggestions would be appreciated.
He will have a small amount of cash. He is very smart, polite, and works hard. He wants to take this chance get out of the US and see more of the world. He would like to find a job and support himself. He has no family or friends there so he’ll be arriving totally alone. His great grandfather going back 11 generations is John Endicott from England. He needs cheap accomodation and access to any kind of work that will support his desire to live there for a year. Any info/experience/suggestions would be appreciated.
You say he is smart. He will cope.
Hello
I totally get what you mean… But you see UK is an expensive place to live in, especially in London (one of world’s most expensive cities-more expensive than NYC)
Well as you stated in your question that your Son is very smart & a nice person than I don’t think your son needs to go UK… as its expensive & there’s no way that your son can live there cheap, even if he works (part time) as a student… he will still need a good financial backing… besides the UK Pound £ is almost double the value of the US Dollar, its not gonna be easy to finance your son in his living & studying in UK.
My personal advice is that why don’t you let go to Australia or New Zealand
Australia & New Zealand are great place to study as people there are friendly & nice & basically they are English (as a former British colony)
Its nicer place to be in… less expensive than Europe or UK
& even the weather out there is amazing… as its summer around the world its winter* in there… because these countries are below the equator.
& even the US Dollar is stronger to these countries…
tell ur son to research more about where he likes to go… maybe going to Sydney, Australia isn’t that bad… think about it
Chill… & good luck
I’ve been living in London for a year now (originally from New York) and I must warn you, it is very expensive. The fact that the U.S. Dollar is weak isn’t helping matters. It will be very hard for him to live here without a job and it will be hard for him to get a job here since British employers prefer to hire UK citizens or Europeans, due to labor laws.
There are some programs that allow Americans to come to the UK though, I can’t remember the name though.
You can check the UK-Yankee website
he cant sorry
Getting the legal right to work in the UK is his biggest problem. He’s too many generations removed for the ancestry qualification (you can’t go further than, like, 2 or 3) so that’s out of the question. If he’s graduating with his MBA, he may qualify for the highly skilled migrant program, which is explained in detail on the British embassy’s website. Other than that he’ll have to get a UK employer to work through the red tape to hire a non-EU national so that he can get the work visa before he leaves the States. If he’s willing to settle for only working six months, he should do BUNAC (their website is). They have a special deal with the government that allows recently graduated students (or students taking a break) to get a Blue Card work visa, which gives them almost unlimited rights to work and live in the UK for six months. They do the same thing with Ireland for four months and you can piggyback them, so your son could make ten months straight out of that and then just be a tourist for two more months afterward. I’m sorry if I’m doing any bubble bursting but I don’t think he’ll find a way work there for a whole year if he doesn’t already have some big professional connections.
You shouldn’t have any other worries though.
Well, except the cell phone. An American cell phone will only work over there if it has some special chip (tri-band or something?) You should definitely ask your cell phone company about that. It’s not a big deal though because pay-as-you-go cell phones are cheap and plentiful over there.
Have your son check out the study abroad office of his university. There is a work abroad program for students wanting to work in the UK. If he can find a job in his field he’ll get experience that looks great on a resume, if not, he’ll still have fun. There are also globalgraduates and other programs that would be available to your son.
very hard england is expencive i was only there for a week and spent god only knows how much money on just basic things.