International Bright Young Things

“I STRUGGLED with city life at first,” says James Conole, a second year Medical Student from Ireland. “Galway is a small city and is much more laid back. I didn’t know a soul when I first got here, but I soon made friends. I got involved with the societies here. Manchester is very active socially.”

There are more than 6,000 students from 162 countries currently enrolled on courses here at The University of Manchester. This figure has shown a year on year increase since 2004 and shows no sign of slowing down. Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s academic ranking of world universities in 2007 put Manchester 48th in the world rankings and fifth in the UK, behind Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Imperial. This makes Manchester an extremely popular destination for students from around the world.

International students can pay as much as £40,000 for a three year undergraduate course, although EU students can benefit from their fees being paid by their government. The considerable expense for non-EU students has not stopped the greatest intake of international students coming from China and Hong Kong. More than a quarter of the international intake of 2007/8 was from the two countries alone.

James was one of 188 students from the Republic of Ireland to enrol recently. He found Manchester daunting on initial contact. “The first thing that struck me when I arrived was the sheer size of the place. Coming through Wythenshawe from the airport I saw huge estates and what looked like terrible social deprivation. And everything here is made of red bricks! It really blew my mind. There are no red brick buildings in Galway.

“I didn’t gravitate towards other Irish students, as there are not that many here. Northern Irish friends of mine have tended to stick together though, but there are a lot more of them in Manchester.”

This lack of familiar people, James said, was not necessarily a bad thing. “The multiculturalism of Manchester means I have been able to meet a huge variety of people I never would have encountered back home. As well as the people, I am still discovering new music nights, clubs, and areas of Manchester.

“Manchester is quite friendly. The bus drivers say hello. There are lots of good people here. Manchester is also a great place in terms of geographic location. We are near to North Wales and the Peak district.”

James has been very impressed with his degree so far. “My course here has been exceptionally good so far. Being based in a Salford hospital has been fantastic. I have gained a lot from my time here and really developed as a person.”

Not all students have such a great time, however. “I hated Manchester when I first arrived. I thought the city was a big grey beast trying to eat my soul,” recaps Anja Bugeja, a third year Anthropology student from Malta.

Leaving the comfort of the family home is always difficult; leaving your country only compounds the potential problems. But there are organisations here that can help.

The International Society was set up to help international students get the best out of their time in the UK. The organisation sets up trips and offers a wide range of classes, activities and parties for students away from home. Sam Harris is their Project and Training Officer. “We work to create a warm and friendly place for people to socialise. We have a Halal café open for lunch Monday to Friday and there are language courses in the evenings along with day trips and weekends away for members.”

Forthcoming events from the International Society include trips to Whitby and Edinburgh, lessons in Farsi and Korean and meditation classes. The society is not just open to international students, but to everyone.

There are lots of ways to meet people at university, as Anja soon discovered. “It was difficult to meet people from my course, as most would just leave after the huge lectures. I started gravitating towards activism. That was a much better way of making friends. There is so much going on here that just doesn’t happen back home.”

“I chose Manchester because I was told the Anthropology department offers a lot of Latin American study, which is a big interest of mine. I wanted to leave Malta anyway, to travel. Malta is quite a homogenous culture. You cannot even get a decent curry there. Manchester has all kinds of people. It’s amazing being part of such a vibrant city with so much going on.”

Anja was impressed with certain elements of British culture. “Everyone is very confident and forthright here. Women in Malta are rarely as confident as the students here. I love the collegiate feel of university life. People have opinions and are proud to share them.”

However, some British tendencies leave Anja well and truly stumped. “There were a few things that struck me as odd here in Britain. All the queues in Manchester are really funny. There is just no concept of queuing in Malta. People here are very distant too. A girl looked me in the eye in the library, then apologised, saying that she thought I was someone else. Fancy apologising for looking someone in the eye! People are more chatty and open in Malta.”

And that’s not all. “On the bus recently a guy was being sick, but the driver wouldn’t let him off because we were stuck in traffic between stops. I thought that was very odd. People can be quite bureaucratic here. In Malta the buses don’t have doors, so that problem would never arise.”

Anja is not the only student who found some elements of British life unusual. “The bread here is all so soft! Polish bread is harder, like German bread. In Poland we call British bread ‘toast bread’ because we would only buy it to toast. We do not have pasteurised milk in Poland either. You can buy fresh milk that goes off really quickly, or UHT milk that lasts for years,” observes Justyna Ostrowska, a first year Pharmacology with German student from Poland.

Speaking of her first impressions, Justyna found Manchester quite similar to her home city. “The Architecture here is similar to Warsaw, in terms of the eclectic mix of buildings, even a certain anarchic edge to the city.”

The two cities may have similar appearances, but the cultural differences would have caused problems. “I don’t always get English jokes. Responding with spontaneity was very difficult at first, but that’s improving. I have definitely found it easier to meet and socialise with international students. We come here to make friends and meet new people, but for native students there is not this consideration.”

“I got offers from Cardiff, Bath and Manchester, but decided to study here. I am enjoying my course very much, although the group-learning environment has been less stimulating than I had anticipated. Seminars can be quite stilted.”

Teething problems aside, Justyna speaks highly of the experience she has had so far. “I would recommend anyone to study abroad. You become aware of things that you normally would not, with first hand experience of other country’s culture and events.

The international students interviewed here seemed to have had a good experience on the whole, and apart from some minor cultural problems have integrated well and enjoyed their courses. British students benefit from the input of overseas students too, gaining from the cultural exchange that this allows, and, quite simply, from meeting great people they may otherwise never know.