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Studying in UK By Group 6 Kingsley Ibeji 1101620 COURSE TITLE:Communication in Business April 6, 2011 Table of Content 1. 0 Executive summary…………………………………………………………2 2. 0 Introduction………………………………………………………………….. 3 3. 0 Findings……………………………………………………………………… 4. 3. 1 Expectation role from teacher/ student …………………………………. 5 3. 2 Ethical challenges/ policies……………………………………………….. 5 3. 3 Method of assessment as it defer…………………………………………6 3. 4 Ability to meet up cost by working part-time…………………………….. 6 3. 5 Ability to imbibe time management policy……………………………….. 3. 6 The Culture shock phenomenon………………………………………….. 7 3. 7 Different strategies of persuasion as it differs in the UK………………. 7 4. 0 Recommendation…………………………………………………………… 8 5. 0 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 10 6. 0 References…………………………………………………………………. 11 1. 0 Executive Summary Studying and living in the UK is the desire for so many students as it has an absolute great standard of education. It is the desire of everyone who wants to acquire a first degree, masters or doctorate to gain an opportunity to study in any of the pronounced higher institution in the UK.
Coming to the UK to a study and adapting entirely to a new culture, environment and life style is a reality of challenge to every foreigner. Even the different weather climate can affect one’s health, and also adopting to a new custom may manipulate our mind and sense of reasoning. When we wake up every morning, it is always a new day to struggle and survival in a new land or country we’ve never been before. It is always easier in a place where you know people and have knowledge how to survive.
But here we are in a strange country having no knowledge of the environment or people living around us hoping to survive as the day goes by. In the UK, a teacher in the university or school has a high role expectation from his students. The teacher expects his or her students to improve their ability work in a team. The academic ethical issues in the UK differ from other countries. In the UK, the two major academic ethics are plagiarism and references. Plagiarism is a method that guard against students who copy works from the original source claiming it to be theirs.
Some international student has not been used to the ethics plagiarism. In the UK, at the degree level, students have to cite some of the information they use in making reports. However, they should have references to refer the original source. Student’s assessment in the UK is usually done through their group work. The universities want to measure the student’s performance and ability to participate in a team and improve student’s ability to learn from one another’s culture and norms.
Due to the high living cost in the UK, most international student has to find a part time job to earn an income. Fortunately the Student visa permits 20hours work time a week. Nevertheless, the students must manage their study time as against their working time ensure proper utilization of time management. This is a process of constantly asking what a event is more important, and arranging priorities to reflect each choice. In the last many years, the number of oversea students who is prefers to study in UK keeps increasing constantly.
Basically, the international students are always faced with challenges of new things, culture and life style which are extremely different from his original way of life, such as foods, language, tradition etc. Of course, in the first few weeks in the new country, the international student would be face by the phenomenon called “culture shock”. Thanabodee Chitapunya 1020641 2. 0 Introduction Statistics shows that the number of students who prefer to embark on their higher studies in UK has always being increasing every year. Even the UK grants over 100,000 visas to various categories of students to study in the UK.
Some of the reasons why students want to study in the UK are to gain advantages of studying in the UK, to learn English language effectively, to experience travelling, they want to learn from diverse cultures of other nations, to expand their knowledge beyond what their home school can offer, to enhance one’s life style, to learn more languages, meet students from other countries of the world, personality changes as he comes into the UK, networking with old friends or people you’ve known before, experiencing new recreational activities. All this are embedded into the social well being of a student studying in the UK.
Academically, there are other areas that have one effect or the other that pose as challenges, and of which is absolutely paramount to every other thing. In this report, we intend to look deep into various issues and expectations observed during our studying in the UK . 1. Expectation role from teacher/ student 2. Ethical challenges/ policies 3. Method of assessment as it defers from what they are used to. 4. Ability to meet up cost by working part-time 5. Ability to imbibe time management policy 6. The Culture shock phenomenon 7. The various strategies of persuasion as it differs in the UK . 0 FINDINGS To study in the UK is an excitement to every student. Being a student in the UK has enough challenges especially when you may want to complicate things like falling ill and not having a national insurance or not even registering with the national health insurance scheme. It is indeed an interesting thing to study in the UK, but everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. In the mist of this advantages and disadvantages, it is absolutely our responsibility to ensure we meet up some of these challenges. According to Christopher P & Daniel J. (2007) Stemming from one of the largest cross-cultural business surveys conducted, encompassing 117,000 subjects in 66 countries, Hofstede identified four dimensions of national culture (called Hofstede’s framework) upon which to describe culture. They are as follows: 1. Individualism/collectivism 2. Uncertainty avoidance 3. Power distance, and 4. Masculinity/femininity Other observed challenges are described in the sections below 3. 1 Expectation role from teacher/ student Every teacher expects the best from his or her students especially in the area of academics. It is the desire of every teacher to impact knowledge to his students.
There are various roles a teacher expects from his students. A teacher expects his students to develop his knowledge and understanding of the subject. Having skill to develop and interest of the subject gives the students the ability to be able to challenge and criticize various theories in that subject as well as apply his knowledge and understanding in solving various problems arising from the study of that subject A teacher expects a student to be able to work in a team to handle various group work. This ability proofs to the teacher the tenability of the student to be able to work in any organization were he has to work in various teams.
A teacher expects a student to indulge in his own personal reading by making various research and personally reading from the library source. This makes the student to be properly prepared for any lecture week and helps him contribute effectively in class. A teacher expects a student to take notes in class as well as pay full attention as lectures go on. Taking notes in class is very vital as its helps the student remember very key words especially when he is having his own private reading. A teacher expects his students to ensure he writes up his assignment and submits it on any due date.
It is a great offence if a student does not meet up to this as it discourages the teacher’s effort. A teacher expects his students to pass his course and other courses. It is the joy of a teacher to see his students do vehemently well in his academics. 3. 2 Ethical challenges/ policies There are ethical issues that do govern the academic aspects of the student in the university. These ethical issues are not always strange to a student who has gone through the orientation and induction at the beginning of his studies in the school. The two major academic ethical issues are Plagiarism and Referencing and every student wants to guard against.
Plagiarism is the act of repeating another person’s words or images and claiming them to be yours while they are not. This gives an impression that you have written a statement or an article while they don’t belong to you. The University and educational system do frown at this and inevitable punishments have been levied to any offender. Most student due to laziness and carelessness have refused to read and decide to take a short court by using other people’s work and coining them to be theirs. Referencing is the ability to refer to your reader where you got information or citations from be it on the internet, text books, articles or report.
There certain standards that a student is expected to do his referencing, and this standard has to be followed strictly. Cheating in the examination is one thing a student is not expected to get involved in. 3. 3 Method of assessment as it defers in various countries These have generated various objections by so many students but have never gone by the way they want it. Rather the University policy on this issue has always prevailed at all time. These objections have always been as a result of different and various ways of assessment in different educational system in countries were these students are coming from.
For instance, in Nigeria, an academic session, each student has to write an examination which carries majority of the student assessment marks and enabling the teacher assess the student ability to have acquired knowledge from what he was taught throughout that session. Now, here in the UK, the university system believe in assessing the students through their group work and these has not been the desire of many students because in the group, some students hide under that umbrella whereby they do not contribute immensely to the assignment given and yet they get good grades. Quite a number of students have frowned at this. 3. Ability to meet up cost by working part-time Over 90 percent of the international students want to indulge in one part time job or the other. Reason for this is for them to be able to meet up their living cost. Some students go to the extent of getting multiple jobs to be able to meet up. As much as it goes a long way to assist students in financing their cost/ expenses it also affects their level of academic performance. Most times when they are supposed to have their group meetings to discuss ways to tackle their group assignment and other obligations, they would give one excuse or the other of their inability to participate.
These are some of group of people who hide under the umbrella of those participating in the group and still get a good grade. Kingsley Ibeji – 1101620 3. 5 Ability to imbibe time management policy Time management begins with commitment to change. It is easy so long as you are committed to action. You should be able to make your plans and protect the timing of your plans by organizing your environment and re-coordinating other expectations. Time management helps us to improve our productivity and discard all negative attitude of poor time wastage. UK is popular for time management.
People here do everything on the time. When there is an engagement for 2pm ensure to be there before 2pm and not 10 minutes past 2pm. UK is very much strict about rules and regulation. If anybody does not obey the rule they will be punished. After studying in UK, a lot of students would become regulated to rules of time management. Time management gives us a opportunity to decide how to spend our little time and resources, allows us to learn how to spend our time. It also gives us the opportunity to plan for the unplanned, follow a schedule that can adapt to changes as well as get important things done. Treating every activity as an appointment will allow you to plan better. It will also keep you realistic about what you feel you can and cannot do throughout your day so that you can perform each task with a conscious intention without the stress or overwhelm normally associated with trying to Do it all. ” (Keith, 2010) 3. 6 Culture Shock Every day, millions of people come into the UK for different reasons. At the same time they meet different people from various cultural backgrounds and are exposed to culture shock.
There are some noticeable symptoms of culture shock which are, “anxiousness, frustration and excitement, inappropriate social behaviour, inability to get along with colleagues, managers, classmates, teachers, unable to work well, feel isolated and lonely, depressed and guilty”. (Elizabeth, 1999). All these symptoms begin to show up once you start meeting lots of people and learning their ways from their different countries. Also the shock of being separated from your family, loved ones, friends and colleagues, begins to show up because these are people who are always there to guide you when you in your own country few days back.
Every student differ in their life style by their way of study, thinking level, what type of cuisine they like etc. At the end of their studies they should be able to go home with various knowledge acquired while they stayed in the UK. “For those who work in international business, it is sometimes amazing how different people in other cultures behave. We tend to have a human instinct that ‘deep inside’ all people are the same – but they are not. Therefore, if we go into another country and make decisions based on how we operate in our own home country – the chances are we’ll make some very bad decisions”. Hofstede 2004). Despite the fact that culture shock is usually comes up temporarily, it is important to understand that there are ways to helping yourself. You may begin by not putting up a worrisome attitude especially making yourself feel at ease. Secondly, try to understand that this is a normal experience and may likely be of help to you. Thirdly, ensure to constantly keep in touch with your loved ones and family back at home. Fourthly, you may need to have familiar things like old photographs and gifts from your loved ones.
Try to locate where you can either buy or eat familiar food that is known to your or that you usually eat when you were back home. You may also need to take regular exercise, joint the University sport club or participate in any recreational activity of your choice. You also need to take advantage of any help offered to you by your institution, through the student union, international office, University or college services. There may be professional adviser who can render counseling services to you. Above all, you need to make a friend that can always talk and listen to you as well as understanding all your needs.
Abhishek Arora 1030319 3. 7 Strategies of persuasion and how they differ in the UK John stone (2003) suggests that culture vary in the ways they try to persuade each other in discussions or arguments. The main styles are quasilogical, presentational and analogical. Here in the UK culture, the quasilogical approach is mostly used in persuading people to work or do something. Many of the international students who are from Africa and India are used to the presentational approach of persuasion. Coming to the UK makes a challenge to adapt to a different approach. 4. 0 RECOMMENDATION
From the above details, we are able to understand that the students from the domestic and international may vary in their needs, experience and expectation. In recent years we are able to identify that in other developed countries and in developing countries the students have the ability and the subject interests varying in their learning experience. Been a student in the UK has enough challenges especially when you may want to complicate things like falling ill and not having a national insurance or not even registering with the national health insurance scheme.
It is indeed an interesting thing to study in the UK, but everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. In the mist of this advantages and disadvantages, it is absolutely our responsibility to ensure we meet up some of these challenges. So from our study we are able to find more and more atrocities and some of our recommendation is mentioned below. Teacher/student role expectations Every teacher expects the best from his or her students especially in the area of academics. It is the desire of every teacher to impact knowledge to his students.
There are various roles a teacher expects from his students. A teacher expects his students to develop his knowledge and understanding of the subject. A teacher expects a student to be able to work in a team to handle various group works. A teacher expects a student to take notes in class as well as pay full attention as lectures go on. A teacher expects his students to ensure he writes up his assignment and submits it on the due date and the assignment should be from his own views and ideas. A teacher expects his students to pass his course and other courses.
It is the joy of a teacher to see his students do vehemently well in his academics. Student’s expectation To manage student expectations by providing the key information about library resources and services. Please don’t try to consider international student as an homogeneous group, as much as the students from the domestic country may not also have the same cultural back ground. Try to use plain English in during academic sessions, publications, in guiding the students and try to avoid jargons. Try to provide literacy sessions to cater all levels of IT ability by providing back up resources to the students.
Provide regular training to the staff in cross cultural behaviors and also cultural diversities. Try to create a sessions to understand the students learning styles and their differences in teaching. MudhanVarghese 1032811 5. 0 Conclusion However, studying in the United Kingdom offers a wonderful opportunity and experience which cannot be easily forgotten. Every country has own culture and traditions. In UK, there is different style of teaching and studying. There are many challenges which students have to face while studying in UK.
Living in UK is costly than in India, Pakistan or other Asian countries, so to manage this students have to work as part-time jobs. They have to adjust with the time and money. Everything has its there own advantages and disadvantages, so study in UK also have some advantages and disadvantages. It is a thing of pride when we go back to our various countries and letting people know of our experience in studying in the UK. Students should be able to develop attitudes and talent that would stay with them for a life time.
Every teacher wants from their students to be perfect in academic and tells how to cope up with the difficult situations by sharing their own experiences and knowledge. Teacher gave some problems to students to apply knowledge they learned. A teacher expects a student to be able to work in a team to handle various group works which will help students while they work in an organization. Students want to gain knowledge from their teacher or lecturer. Students from different courtiers want to cope up with other countries culture. Students don’t want to be treated as international students.
Teaching style and Plagiarism is the main problem for the international students. In India there is a tradition to take papers of students after a year but in UK opposite to India. In UK students has to work on reports. Students from different countries want to make sessions in to understand about the learning styles and the differences in teaching. Assessment Strategies This has brought quite a number of objections by so many students but has never gone by the way they want it. Rather the University policy on this issue has always prevailed at all time.
It is important that the University should review this area as it is important to assess students individually. Working part time – meeting your expenses Over 90 percent of the international students want to indulge in one part time job or the other. Reason for this is for them to be able to meet up their living cost. It will be good if the University would provide flexible time in the fixing lectures so that the students can meet up. Students from different countries have to do work part time to manage with their money needs. Most of the students living on rent in UK. To rent paid they have to work.
UK government allow students to work for 20 hours per week. Rajinder Singh 1029754 6. 0 References 1. http://lrweb. beds. ac. uk/guides/subjectguides/physical-education/dont 2. ( Assesses on April 10 2011) 2 www. jcq. org. uk/… /16. %20JCQ%20Suspected%20Malpractice%2010-11 (Assessed on April 4 2011) 3 Johnstone B(1989) in Lustig M W and Koester J (2003) Intercultural Competence, interpersonal communication across cultures, 4th Ed. Boston, Allyn and Bacon P 250 4. Marks E, Breaking Through Culture Shock, What you need to succeed in international business 1999 5. ttp://www. nwlincs. org/mtlincs/pilotproject/studyskills/timemanagement. (Assessed on April 4 2011) 6. www. profitbuilders. com/article_timemanagement. htm Keith’s Articleon time management 7 http://www. studyabroaduniversities. com/ArticleDetails. aspx? Article=Studying- abroad-offers-a-great-experience& Article ( Assesses on April 1 2011) 8. www. ukcisa. org. uk),(www. degree-essays. com) ( Assesses on April 7 2011) 9. http://www. ukcisa. org. uk/student/info_sheets/culture_shock. php ( Assesses on April 9 2011) Hardeep Singh 1031129