UNIVERSITY OF

LEEDS

Cheung Hoi Yan Claudia ISOM & MGMT Year 3

Monthly Activity log

Jan I took a flight from Hong Kong to Manchester and landed Manchester on 18 Jan in the early morning. As there are no meet and greet services in Spring semester, I had to plan my own way to Leeds. I took a train from Manchester Airport to Leeds station then change for a taxi to my hall. I arrived on the suggested arrival day where I could have one day of rest and then to attend all the orientation talks and activities held by the school.

Feb February was a month that I would never forget, I went through a lot of ups and downs. I visited travelled to quite a lot of places during this month, including a wildlife park in west Yorkshire, Manchester and London. In the end of February, my friend and I had a trip to London. The trip was wonderful where we visited the British Museum, visited the Tower Bridge, and ate many yummy cuisines. Everything went smooth and happy. We had so much fun. And then my bad luck began…I got my passport stolen in the underground somewhere near London China Town! However, as I had to rush to the Victoria bus station for the overnight bus head back to Leeds, I didn’t have much time to deal with it until I arrived Leeds. The full story of how did I solve this chaos would be on Mar’s log, But in this hard time I really treasure my friends met in Leeds, they helped me through this and cheered me up. On my birthday, they cooked me a dinner and prepared a cake to celebrate my first birthday ever in overseas. They are really so kind and warm. With their warm celebration, I relaxed a lot and find the warm support and power from friendship.

Mar March was a very unforgettable month. UK was hit by the “Beast from the East”, which brings Leeds layers and layers of thick snow, temperature went down to negative degrees. In the coldest days, even I wore all of my down jackets could still freeze when standing outdoor for 5 minutes. In the coldest period, unluckily I had to make my new passport. I went to the China Embassy in Manchester and finally got my new passport after 3 weeks’ time. Fortunately, I finally got my new passport just a week before my Easter holiday travel.

Apr Leeds University has a one month Easter break holiday so we would go travel. During this break I travelled to other cities in UK, Netherlands and Germany.

May In May the study resumes and we finished the last lecture in the end of May. And I also travelled to Edinburgh with my friends. The weather and view was fabulous! After the trip I start writing the essays required to hand In as one of the assessment. Also, I started to prepare for the exams In the end of month.

Jun After finishing all the exams, I went directly back to Hong Kong and it marks the end of my exchange journey. I already missing my friends and my hall Oxley hall.

General exchange information

Visa procedures If you are holding a HKSAR passport, you don’t have to do any pre application for visa in Hong Kong. You will be granted a short term 6-months study visa when you are in the immigration office in the UK airport. But you must have the confirmation letter issued by HKUST on hand as a proof of your student identity and exchange to the school in the host country. After answering a few questions by the immigration officer, you have a short term study visa in the form of a stamp on your passport, then you are free to go.

Orientation activities For the official orientation activities, you will have to attend a few talks and workshops organized by the university to get yourself familiarized the new environment. Those are mandatory and have to sign attendance. For students-led orientation activities, most of them are “bar crawls” or “Otley Run” which both refers to start drinking in the first bar on the top of Otley area and get all the way down to city centre. I heard one of the highest record is that aa boy insisted till the 17th bar! If you are drink lover, you must go and join these activities!

International services & activities There are quite a lot of international activities for you to make new friends from all around the world. University of Leeds is famous for having a diversity of students and staff nationalities. They hold activities like Global Café on every Monday where you can have a chance to chat with someone you don’t know with some drinks and snacks to spend a good afternoon. Also , they have some Give It A Go activities where you can have a try on some activities for free like rock climbing, horse riding etc. Also, some organizations hold some day trips and tours to city nearby, which is also a great chance to meet some new friends.

Accommodation The University provides different types of accommodations including on-suite, studio, self-catered, catered and more. Most of the dormitories are off campus, but most of them are not far away from the campus. However, there are a few halls that are far away from city centre and campus. For example, I lived in Oxley Residences, it took me 45mins to go from my hall to campus or city centre especially when it is peak hour in the morning when everyone goes to school or work and in the late afternoon when everyone goes back home. Therefore I don’t recommend students live in accommodation that are too far from the campus and city centre.

Courses registration Courses will start to register before your arrival, you can apply the modules through the online application form. In the application form you can put on all the modules that you may want to study, after the enrolment, if you want to add or drop or swap the modules just send an email to inform the related department. However, once you have arrived Leeds, you will have to hand in all the forms in person if you would like to have any changes.

Teaching & assessment methods The teaching pattern is similar with HKUST, there are lectures and seminars (tutorials). However, there are usually only one lecture and one seminar per week in Leeds, they usually both last for around 1 hour. In Leeds, more self-learning is expected as there are quite a lot of readings assigned

and they will ask you to discuss the materials that you have read during seminars. For assessment, business courses usually will ask you write an essay as well as having a written exam.

Sports & recreation facilities There is a large sports complex building named The Edge, which includes some gym rooms, dance rooms, function rooms, a swimming pool etc. You can use your student card to access this building and everything there is for free. Also, they have some free fitness classes like dancing, yoga, swimming classes etc for students. In some of the accommodations, they will have an on-site gym room as well, just like in my hall in Oxley we do have a small but great gym room.

Finance & banking (including currency/ expenses) I opened a bank account in HSBC which is quite convenient and fast. I recommend you can go to HSBC branch in Park Row in city centre. All you need to bring is your passport, you University of Leeds student id card as well as the bank letter issued by Leeds University. After you have opened the account, the bank staff should prpvide you an international bank account so that you can ask your family to have international transfer of UK pounds to the account with some administrative fee. The transfer is fast so I recommend you bring a small part of pounds with you when you are traveling to UK and transfer the remaining part of your money to the account to be more save. In UK most of the payment can be paid with the debit card contactless so cash is not a must on hand when you are hanging out. Below shows the breakdown of my expenses:

Air ticket (under CX discount campaign with HKUST) £ 700.00

Accomodation £ 2,600.00

Daily expenses £ 3,000.00

Travelling expenses £ 2,000.00

Total £ 8,300.00

Social clubs & networking opportunities There are many social clubs that you can join, the school would have a day for you to register the clubs that you like, ranging from horse-riding club to Harry Potter Club, just everything you can think of. Also, if you are a drinker, there are tonnes of different drinking clubs for you to join, like cocktail club, drinking club etc.

Health & safety Leeds is a relatively safe city, however, you still have to be aware for your valuables. Also, never walk alone in Hyde Park area at night especially when you are alone as there are a number of rapes and robbery cases. Try not to stay outside at night as it may be a bit dangerous. For health, watching a doctor might be a bit clumsy and expensive in UK as we are not covered in the local insurance campaign. But Panadol’s can be easily bought in the pharmacy of Boots. I also recommend bringing some of your medicines from Hong Kong.

Food The price level of dining outside is not very high when compare with other big cities like London, around 8-9 pounds for a spaghetti course. Leeds has relatively more choice of cuisines including Chinese Siu Mei Rice, Thai food, and other more kinds besides Traditional English cuisine. Have a walk in Kirkgate Market and go visit Zaap Thai. You will be amazed.

Transportation Transportation Is quite expensive in UK, a normal single bus ticket from accommodation to city centre is around 3 pounds in Leeds. However, if you have a student card from any university in Leeds, you have a discounted student ticket for 1 pound. Besides buying it day by day, you can also choose to buy some day tickets or monthly pass, which are sometimes cheaper than buying day tickets alone if you are a constant traveller. As my accommodation is far away from school and city centre, I bought a monthly student pass for 45 pounds per month so that I can travel unlimited times by bus during that month.

Climate

The temperature in Leeds is colder than Hong Kong, it can be down to negative degrees during snow and up to 30 degrees in summer. The usual range in winter is about 0 to 10 degrees which is quite cold, while it is around 16 to 30 degrees in summer. However, even it is hot in daytime, after the sun sets, it would be quite cold so always bring a jacket with you.

Communication As the official language of the United Kingdom is English, there is no worry that you do not understand the language. Leeds has its own accent but it is just very subtle that you can barely aware. However, if you are traveling to the northern part of England, you might need some time to familiarize yourself with the Scottish accent.

Cautionary measures What should you do if you have unfortunately lost your passport?

1) Report to the police station and get a crime report reference number 2) Get some ID photos if you do not have one (Taking ID photos for Hong Kong passport is expensive I spent around HKD $300 to get just 3 copies with a soft copy, so you should definitely take some ID photos with you in Hong Kong as a spare) 3) Go to the Embassy website, download and fill in required forms (HK passport cannot be applied online so you have to print out forms and fill in) 4) Bring all the required documents and forms to the nearest Embassy of China (they usually just open 9am-12pm Monday to Friday so go as early as you can to avoid overcrowded situation) 5) Embassy should ask you to send the documents back to Hong Kong by yourself, so go to the nearest post office and send the documents. Don’t forget to get the tracking code. 6) Wait for three weeks’ time to get your new passport at the Embassy.

Items to bring -ID photos -HKID card -Passport -Umbrella -Scarf -Down jacket -Exchange acceptance letter -Small amount of cash (both HK dollars and pounds) -Medicine -Adaptors (for travelling in Europe) -Charger Bank -Laptop

Useful links and contacts

1. Website for international students: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/info/123000/international_students

2. Accommodation: https://accommodation.leeds.ac.uk/ 3. Leeds Student Union: https://www.luu.org.uk/ 4. China Embassy website: http://manchester.chineseconsulate.org/eng/ 5. Trainline website: https://www.thetrainline.com/