What to expect of Manchester and the UK

Notice

Do you want to help the University find out more about the first weeks being a student? Would you like to help future students feel more prepared for their time at the University of Manchester?

The Orientation team need your help!

For the first time, we are running a project into what NEW students are doing in their first three weeks in Manchester, and when. The experiment is relevant to both international and home students and involves participants being sent 4 or 5 texts each day randomly between 10am and 8pm. Each text will ask participants where they are, what they are doing, who they are with, and how they feel. It only needs a short reply – it will not take up much of your time, and you will get paid £45 worth of Amazon vouchers. There will also be a bigger smart survey at the end of each week.

Part 6

For the final part of this topic, let me tell you all about the UK. Although the UK is by no mean a big country in terms of land area, it has surprisingly many locations that you can visit. Don’t like the hustle and bustle of the city? Go visit the castles. Not a fan of medieval architectures? Go camping in the Lake District. Don’t like anything I have suggested? Stay at home, study, get good grades and make your family proud!😆 There are infinitely many options and I can guarantee that you will not be bored in the UK (for the first few months at least 😎😎).

Here…😐is another list

• London – it should go without saying that even if you don’t plan to go anywhere or do anything during your time in the UK, you should at least visit London once. It is like the bigger brother of Manchester, has more shops, types of foods, tourist attractions (this means it’s going to be very crowded everywhere) and more expensive as well (it is the capital after all hehe🙂).
  • The best way to get to London is through the high-speed train which will take you there from Manchester Piccadilly Station to London Euston in around 2 hours. A downside is it is quite expensive depending one when you are booking it. Cheapest round trip is about £40, but it can go over £100 if you book with a few days in advance.
  • The cheapest way then it is, of course, the by the coach with a big downside of the journey taking 5hours. How much the coach is will depend on which company you are going with. You can find tickets to London as cheap as £4 (return as well!) and the most expensive coach tickets are cheaper than the cheapest train tickets.
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• York – a historical city only a 1-hour train journey from Manchester (the trains that go there are slower than the London ones 😲). Surrounded by a medieval defence wall and at the heart of the city is the awe-inspiring York Minster, the cathedral of York. When you have finished visiting the central area, you can hop down to the campus of The University of York to see what a campus university is like. They are known to have one of the most beautiful campuses in the UK so it is definitely worth a visit. Compare and contrast you know😄.
  • There are regular trains to York from all three of the train stations we have in Manchester so I highly recommend taking the train there. Prices are below £30 for a return trip and can go as low as £12.
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• Wales – when you are tired of the city life, stressed over university work, it could be a good idea to visit Wales. The magnificent scenery will help with opening and cleansing your minds so you can be more productive. I don’t have much to say about Wales, but I will let the pictures do the talking
  • Again, the most convenient way of going there would be by the trains, and the price will be vary depending on where you are going in Wales(Cardiff, Conwy, Wrexham, Swansea, etc.)
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• Lake District – one of the most popular camping/hiking spots in the UK, the highest mountain and the largest lake in England (yeh the big ones are in wales or Scotland 😅😅) are both situated here. Spectacular scenery and…FRESH air!
  • if you are interested then you can check out this site to learn more.
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• Surrounding cities – Liverpool, Sheffield, Blackpool, Birmingham, Leeds, etc. are all great cities to visit if you enjoy exploring cities. As all the locations are metropolitan areas, they are extremely easy to get to through trains and coach.

There are also many places down south of the UK which are a bit harder to get to, but if you are dedicated and have a big enough budget you will not have any problem to reach wherever you want to go in the UK (thanks for it being a relatively small country and also a country with great public transport). If you would like to leave the country and go somewhere further, you can get really really cheap flights to places like Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, etc. for less than £50(keep looking as prices change all the time)! You can download apps like Skyscanner (Skyscanner has a feature that will give you all the cheapest options in an easy to read manner)and Expedia to search for the cheap flights. Also, Google’s flight search engine is really good too. As for cheap accommodations, you can use Airbnb.

This is all for today, thank you for your time reading this blog. If you have any questions please ask and I will try my best to answer them.