The International Student Blog

A recent poll by Unite, the student accomodation company in the UK has revealed that most students think the UK is too expensive as a study destination. Although saying that in the same study over 80% of those polled said that they thought the standard of teaching in the UK was good or very good!

Education Guardian Article

What do students think that are studying in the UK? Is it too expensive? We all know about loan programs for international students studying in the USA or Canada – but I am not aware of similar programs for the UK?

If you were anything like me when I was in school, I used so many different stations for each class and it really used to bug me that I would not be able to have my favourite bookmarks to hand? With Del.icio.us you now can create an online collection of all your favourite bookmarks – so no matter what computer you are on, you can still access them.

What’s more, you can share them with friends!

Please also add our blog and sites to your Del.icio.us collection by simply clicking below!

Visit Del.icio.us today!

Add our blog to Del.icio.us

Did you know that InternationalStudent.com now offers one of the cheapest T-Mobile Prepaid Sim Card in the USA! At just $39 for the sim card, you also get $30 free calling credit along with $5 free international calling credit with iCallAbroad.com.

Also – with free shipping anywhere in the world you can stay connected with family and friends:

http://www.internationalstudent.com/sim_cards/

If your like me and you love gadgets and all things new and innovative, then you will most probably have an iPod or some sort of mp3 player – but have you thought about using it to learn English??

Podcasts are becoming more and more popular as a free way to distribute news, views and opinions online. I am sure many of you are thinking “What is a podcast?” and the simple answer is a podcast is a short audio show that is distributed (usually for free) online. If you have an iPod you will know about iTunes and their podcasting directory.

So how can a podcast help you learn English? Well the guys a ESL Pod now publish a regular ESL podcast to help students with their english. A truly fantastic idea and I am sure a lot of fun!

This has also got me thinking, are their other language Podcasts available? I have been searching and not found any like this yet – post a comment if you run one or know of one!

Find out more about ESL Pod at:
http://www.eslpod.com/

Obviously the increase in violence in the middle east between Israel and Lebanon is something that we do not want to see, as innocent people get caught up. However, the violence is also going to hurt many Universities in this region as pointed out by a recent article in InsideHigherEd.com. Not only will this keep students away from the region, but also as the last few years has seen an increase in foreign professors and students coming back to this region.

To learn more about this and the increasing violence, please see:
http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/17/lebanon
BBC News Coverage

At InternationalStudent.com we are are continually getting enquiries from students who are asking questions such as:
“Can you find me the right course/ program?”
“Do you offer any funding/ scholarships?”

Unfortunately at InternationalStudent.com we are not designed to offer a personalized facility for students who are looking to study abroad, what we do instead is build our site with content and information to help you find the right program yourself. For example if you are looking to study in the USA but know nothing about where you want to study, why not first try our Study USA Information Pages to learn more about the USA as a destination. You can then use our school/ program search to find schools online and contact them directly. Please also consider these other resources to help you located programs/ schools:

– Edvisors School Listings
– Hyperstudy Online Search

For funding and scholarship advice there are many resources available and really the only way to find a scholarship is to search yourself – I have yet to locate an organization that will do this for you – so get online and get searching. If you need help and advice with this try the InternationalScholarships.com Resource Center

Also – make sure you subscribed to the International Financial Aid Blog which will be updated weekly with financial aid information for students!

One of the main things I found as an student was help with things like finding a roommate, or finding an apartment, or if I needed to sell something where could I sell it? I know there are sites like ebay that offer these services – but as a student you generally don’t have much money and these sites cost $$

Thats where Craig’s List comes in! Craigslist is a free online resource that offers everything from community events, gigs, jobs, housing and roommates, and things for sale. Originally started for just the San Francisco Bay area, the site now have micro-sites for most major American cities as well as other countries!

Take a look – if you need to find an apartment its the best way!
http://www.craigslist.org/

I hope you enjoyed the guest posts whilst I was away on vacation. The post about Libyans students coming to the USA is very promising and related to this is the news that Augsburg College in Minnesota has been fined $9,000 by the State Department for organizing trips to Cuba – a country that is on the US ban list.

Once again, this brings to the forefront the issue with travel to countries that are on the ban list and more importantly travel to cuba like I have posted before

You can read the full article about Augsburg College online at:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,640193197,00.html

For the first time since 1980, Libyan nationals are enrolled at a US university. Oklahoma State University welcomed 7 Libyan students after diplomatic ties were reestablished between the US and Libya. There is a long history between OSU and Libya and the story from the OSU newspaper, the Daily O’Collegian (linked here), makes it clear that OSU is delighted to pick up where it left off 26 years ago. All politics aside, student exchanges between the US and Libya can only be beneficial.

The US declared Libya a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979, and closed its embassy in Tripoli in 1980, cutting all diplomatic ties. The US even conducted air strikes against Libya in 1981 and 1986 in response to suspected Libyan sponsorship of terrorist activities. And most damning of all was Libya’s sponsorship of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 which killed 270 people, most of them American. But since 2003, relations have been warming as Libya renounced terrorism and announced it was giving up all programs for the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Some say that Libya’s significant oil reserves have a lot to do with the recent thaw in relations. In any event, the US will upgrade it current liaison office in Tripoli to a full embassy. Libya’s removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism leave only 5 countries on the US list — North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Syria and Cuba. (See related post here about new Florida law banning academic travel to Cuba)

The July 2006 issue of the InternationalStudent.com Newsletter is out now, and this month it has:


1. Introduction
2. American InterContinental University
3. US Journal of Academics
4. International Financial Aid Blog
5. Featured Program: International Language Experience – San Diego
6. Student News – from around the world
7. Student Sound-off – HOT Topics from the mail bag
8. Roommate and housing search — USA and UK
9. Insurance available now for new school year
10. Subscription Information
11. Final Note


You can view the newsletter online now at: http://www.internationalstudent.com/newsletter/issue89.shtml



and you can sign up to get future issues at:

http://www.internationalstudent.com/newsletter