A Long Way to Go

‘NO.’ Simple and clear. That’s what my dad said when I raised the question of pursuing my tertiary education in the UK. It was a money issue.

For the next few months I tried every possible way to persuade him to change his mind. I nagged. I coaxed. I listed out the all the pros and cons of studying in the UK. I talked about I how much love British culture. I explained how I hoped to learn in an English-speaking environment. Under the seemingly endless son-to-dad “pressure”, well, he agreed to give me a chance under the condition that the university is good enough.

Studying in the UK, regardless of the depreciation of the British pound, is still more of less a luxurious good for a student in Asia. The cost of living in the UK is high by anyone’s standards. And on top of that, the tuition fee is another concern for my middle-income family. After all, studying abroad is not something that everyone could afford.

But at the same time, studying in the UK is an absolutely invaluable lifetime experience for me as an international student. Not to mention it would be a whole new environment, but the UK also has some of the world’s finest universities. What’s more is that I truly enjoy British culture. So much so that I’ve been trying very hard but failing to imitate Daniel Craig’s James Bond accent.

Now I have the chance of applying for universities in the UK. However, despite a clear goal, there’s still a long way to go until I get to study in the UK. My brain is twisted and tangled as I am typing this piece, deciding on which five university choices I should fill in my UCAS application.