University of Glasgow, UK | Full Review 2023 | Jaina Shah, MSc Tourism Development and Culture

average score of six or seven for IELTS get a scholarship for this course which is like a fully funded scholarship and actually like work full time because I'm not a scholarship student I earn around somewhere between 40 to 50 000 a month uh firstly there is no campus placement with this course so they have like the career section career groups and then you can apply for those and in them in that they keep sending you updates lastly of course let's just go to LinkedIn or these places and apply and you definitely get like a one-year extended work visa the best part with the European Visa is you can always travel to other Schengen countries start planning I think six months before you want to go somewhere it's like always look for scholarships and not just the scholarships from the college you always get like different scholarships from the countries as well hey guys uh welcome to college Dunya study abroad this is Varun and today we have China is pursuing her Masters in tourism and development from University of Glasgow hi so Jenna can you introduce yourself and talk about a little bit about your background but of yours yeah sure so like of course you told my name so it's Jenna and I'm from chattisgarh in India and so I had my graduation in sociology and I did a part in journalism but I was really interested in tourism and things related to it so I hopped it for this course which is master of science in tourism development and culture and yeah so it's like an Erasmus joint master's degree so this is what I'm doing right now okay so uh why did you choose University of Alaska uh so University of Glasgow particularly and not even the university particularly this course because it is super interesting so we get a chance not only to study in University of Glasgow which is the main University but we also get to study in three different universities which is the University of Malta University of Sweden which is the London University and one in Lisbon which is ishta business school so yeah so we have different semesters in different universities and our main universities University of Glasgow So based on that tourism and culture like this University curriculum is also similar to that you're gonna travel to different state a different countries I guess yeah exactly yeah that's nice yeah so uh which other universities have you applied for in your particular course uh so besides the University of Glasgow I applied for Manchester University I applied for Sheffield Harlem University then I applied for multiple other universities in the UK so majorly my focus was based on UK so yeah so these were some of the universities which I applied for and how many admits have you got actually got admission in all of them but but University of Glasgow particularly like this course interested me way more than others because others were like just in the same place but in this one I got to travel more and since it's a tourism course so it's always better to travel to different countries and cities so yeah so uh you have you worked before and done first video Masters or you have completed your underground and then like you directly joined so I did my undergrad but as I told like I had a background of sociology and journalism so I was working as a journalist entertainment journalist uh but like I really wanted to do something in travel so I just dropped out of wherever I was working and then I started with my masters okay and okay yeah so now I'm in tourism that's right so so how did you uh like apply for these universities like uh any sop loss and all like what's the process that you followed for this particular kind of course yeah so firstly definitely the SOP because we always need that and so that is like a personal statement so I had to write that for each of the University actually not just University of Glasgow and then did a letter of recommendations so criteria for this one was if I'm working I had to get two professional lures and one from the graduation University so wherever I graduated from so okay yeah and then I also TOEFL like whichever score you whichever exam you give and there is like an average score of six or seven for IELTS I gave that I didn't give TOEFL so I don't know much about it but but I'll the average score for each University was around six or seven which should be there what was your score anything about seven or seven point five is that's that's a good score I think yeah good enough to get admission yeah so like uh can you talk a bit about your uh code structure like uh so you mentioned that it has a kind of a unique or structure and can you talk a bit more about it like how many years of course and like how it is distributed over different universities okay so it is like a two-year course and so two years means four semesters and so the first semester is in University of Glasgow which is the main University because that is where you get introduced to everything related to the course then the second semester is done at the University of Malta and there again it's like the second semester so you are just growing through the course and the third semester and fourth semester you get an option between the lone University which is in Sweden and it's the business school which is in Lisbon so you can choose either of the two universities so I personally like the course structure which is in Lisbon because I thought it's more practical uh so I chose that one and my third and fourth semester are there so basically fourth minister is the thesis we work on the dissertation and the thesis or Master thesis so that is the phone semester and yeah and then you're done once you pass with the thesis and every day okay that's interesting so like how did you manage like traveling to different universities and how did you manage your living and all like uh is the University providing you with some like any funding or something or like uh you need to fund yourself or to find a job or how does it how does that work because you keep changing every semester right uh so the best part of this course unfortunately I applied quite late uh but you get a scholarship for this course which is like a fully funded scholarship so it's like you get the compensation for all your travel expenses to different universities and you also get like a thousand Euros per month to like survive in the city wherever you are so it's like a fully funded scholarship but unfortunately I didn't apply for that because I was a bit late uh so yeah so usually the timeline is the application starts around uh November November November end and it ends around mid-jan so in that period if you apply you're eligible for the scholarship and then of course there's a letter or something you need to like you need to explain why you need the scholarship for something okay so yeah so it's pretty good like of course is like quite good for anyone pursuing this kind of a course so at the right time if you apply for all the right things it's like your your research do you do research and all I think it is that's nice so right now then how are you managing like are you paying out of your pocket or are you working somewhere or how is that going uh so it's like a personal my father is sponsoring me right now and besides that for like I keep doing part-time jobs or something like that so yeah so I keep searching for work like I do online work work from home and it is related to travel only so that's the good part like I don't have to change the field or like work in a cafe which I would like to do but fortunately I got something in travel industry itself so that's like that gives you more experience so yeah exactly so like I'm learning and through work and through the course all together so I can manage a bit of my expenses on my own and some my father is paying so yeah it's like that so you mentioned you're working right so are you working like in UK itself or like whatever online work you're doing is it is it like based on UK or like something again based on India and that's what you're using uh so yeah so uh so I've been working two jobs throughout this course one was from the US I'm sorry so one was from the US and the other one which currently I'm working on is from India so it's like a company based in India and I'm working through that and yeah so it's like if you work from wherever you want like uh like Europe more so because I could live in both the places so I like Europe theaters who I want to work more here and okay yeah so well maybe you'll find more opportunity so yeah I think yeah looking for them travel industry is pretty big it cannot work I think it almost any country just that you need to find the right one exactly exactly yeah so how is the fee structure of your course so is this scholarship funding your fee as well I I it would help like if you shed some light on that as well like uh can you explain the fee structure and then let us know like uh if the university you know gives scholarships and all of how it works sure uh so over these scholarship students so as I told you it's fully funded scholarship uh so the students who get these scholarship they don't have to pay the fee like the fee is zero for them and along with that they get thousand Euros per month for their living expenses so it's basically you are learning for free and yeah you're just learning for free it's just that it's just it's just your time that you need to spend that yeah you just need to invest your time and you need to be there so with scholarship you really have to be there for self-funded students like it was covered season and everything so we had an exception of staying back home and doing online like doing the course online uh and besides if you don't you're not a scholarship student then the P structure is somewhere around uh 13 000 pounds somewhere around 13 000 pounds per year which makes it two years twenty six thousand yeah so two years 26 000 pounds so if you convert it into Indian rupees it's like 25 lakhs or something uh for like two years so that is the course fee and so you can pay uh so how you pay it so you can pay through multiple ways of course and you can pay in installments in like six installments eight installments or you can pay all together so that is how the fee structuring works nice that tonight so can I know like how much are you earning through the part times like this uh so the part time it actually depends so I have had quite a few uh experiences in the past so because of that like what an average Indian internship gives you I earn way more than that and like oh so I can actually like work full time because I'm not a scholarship student so I can actually work full time and manage my course if I can so since as I told you it's a work from home thing so it's quite flexible for me so it's like you can say I earn around somewhere between 40 to 50 000 a month uh because in Euros can you mention it in euros it's like yeah so it's somewhere between 400 to 500 euros yeah not exactly 500 but less than that but yeah the ball part number we can catch 500 I guess how are you managing your living like uh you keep changing from place to place you as you mentioned so accommodation and like can you talk a bit about that you're living yeah yeah uh so with the college so every time we move to a different place they give us a list of websites and uh places from where we can search for the accommodations uh we also have University accommodations but usually people prefer staying not in the University because sometimes it's a bit expensive compared to the individual uh places so yeah that's that and then you can go through those websites sometimes they're quite helpful some of the people in my course actually found good places through that and so it depends on country to Country so if you want to find it in the UK in Scotland there are different websites if you want to find Lisbon there are different websites so it's of course country to Country changes and secondly Facebook groups help so they are quite helpful so if you go to for example I want to find a house in Malta so there's like a housing in Malta kind of a group in Facebook and you get to know because you connect through similar kind of people on Facebook who are in the similar course or who have been in this video course so it's easier to find like genuine groups and since it is an Erasmus course so you also have like an Erasmus students Network yeah yeah through that also you tend to find uh these kind of accommodations so yeah it gets pretty hectic at the same time it gets easier because you have so many Source So eventually what do you have you'll have a good experience I think and also like uh I know I think you have worked for Isaac as well so you have a decent amount of uh you know first-hand experience as well with Auto connect with International students and international places yeah that's that's really nice so like uh how much do one spends on an average like for monthly expenses like including your rent bills like food going out and all like a ballpark number number it's like somewhere between I think eight sorry 802 000 Euros which is what exactly the Erasmus pays the scholarship students and so yeah so if you go to the UK it's somewhere on the higher end even in Malta because it's an island country so the pays are towards the higher end but if you stay in Lisbon it's towards the lower end so if you have like 800 to like somewhere around 700 to 800 Euros I think that's more than enough for countries like Lisbon but I think the other three countries are quite expensive which is Scotland or Malta or Sweden if somebody goes there so these places are quite expensive so what would be the high higher number like uh I think 1200 like okay that's that's like an average because that is what and I think that's why the college yeah is that yeah but that's what I was thinking like uh University really is supporting I mean like if you think about it uh you're barely spending anything from your pocket if you actually land up with that scholarship that you mentioned that's nice yeah yeah so what is the future perspective of your course that I know like majority of them wouldn't be familiar so much about these specific focused individual courses but I personally have no idea so even I will learn today so can you tell us like how's the future perspective of your course like when someone graduates from your course so firstly there is no campus placement with this course yeah so that's like the drawback if you would say of this particular course uh so you get money to travel but after that yes the university help you like uh another University help you out and at least trying to search for a job or something uh not really but they have their like career segments like every other university so they have like the career section career groups and then you can apply for those and in them in that they keep sending you updates related to their career things and they will keep sending you job openings or like internship opportunities or something like that so if you want something related to that you can definitely apply and like see how it goes but of course they don't help you applying like you just get the information and you need to apply on your own yeah yeah right that like I think individually you can apply because a lot of the professors in like throughout the course at least yes lectures so they actually work in the profession in which they are teaching so for example if I'm learning about shopping in luxury tourism so that a particular Professor would know about what luxury is or what shopping and luxury is and then they have worked at that particular sector so yeah so this is how like you can connect with your professors and ask them for help or something this is the second thing and lastly of course let's just go to LinkedIn or these places and apply and just look out for different companies and apply like whichever role you want so there are multiple job roles you can take you can do marketing destination marketing then you can work with the sales and business development of a certain company okay then you can do travel consultancy then you can help with the research and development which is what we studied in our first semester which is doing research and development regarding tourism then yeah and also if you want to apply for like a government kind government thing you can just give the government exams and apply because you've had that knowledge so you'll definitely have an edge over other people who want to apply for a tourism based course in India or like anywhere in the world okay yeah so this is nice yeah so I think uh from your like whatever you mentioned I understand that like faculty plays a really important role as well in your course so do you want to uh mention some faculty or give a shout out to any of the faculty I think a lot of them because uh so starting with glasgows we've had like multiple faculty throughout the course so like I know some of them I don't even remember the name now because it's been like two years but in Dumfries which is in Scotland so where we were studying so there was like Don who was our like me in hod and he was quite good with handling everything so he's the main person handling the whole course so he's quite knowledgeable about like so easy easy to reach out to any uh for anyone I think all of them are actually because most of them are available on LinkedIn and so in Malta when we were studying so one of our professors he helps the United Nations deciding which place can be termed as the UNESCO heritage site so he plays a neutral in that then one of them in Malta was the Member of Parliament so we started we were studying from like random people okay there is a huge yeah yeah and then here in Lisbon I think all of them are super good like actually out of all the universities like Lisbon has been the best university because firstly it was practical secondly all the professors were like super good and like they're very helpful so yeah like if I would take name I would take all of that name it's like all of them are good yeah so yeah so coming to the Visa situation uh so your course is not more uh technical or engineering right is it something different does it have some different kind of Visa criteria or like can you talk a bit more about the visa after you graduate and like okay so with Visa of course like for the UK the moment we apply because University of main University and we have like a two-year course written over there so we get a two-year Visa which is like the Visa is basically the British residence so we get that and based on that you can actually get like an extended work visa stuff for like one year or two years I think the rules have changed I haven't really thought of it because I don't want to apply for you okay but yeah you definitely get like a one-year extended work visa based on that so that is a good part and for the other countries you apply for like a one year Visa like even for Malta we had to apply for like a one one year Visa in for Lisbon also it was like very practical because for Portugal I think Portugal is one of the most strictest Visa has strictest Visa policies even for like if you go to travel people usually apply for Spain or Italy and not Portugal because Portuguese Visa is like really difficult to apply for and yes I had like a lot of difficulties with that but basically it's just the documents so if you have all your documents in place and everything verified and checked like your college degree and everything yeah then it's super easy but like of course two years yeah yeah so in two years you've applied for like three different countries Visa something like that yeah yeah yeah yeah oh my God like so let's say how many visas do you have on your passport which I've added for at least one year or more which is valid right now uh I think only the Portuguese one because for the UK one uh as I told you like I had to differ like I told you oftenham but I have to differ for uh the Portuguese Visa because I couldn't get it in the first time uh otherwise like my UK Visa would have been valid and then of course the Portuguese one the best part with the European Visa is you can always travel to other Schengen countries so it's a Shankar Visa that you need to apply separate I guess right it's not actually the Schengen visa but if you apply even for a long term Visa which is what I applied for I didn't apply for Schengen visa which is like a tourist visa yeah I applied for a long-term day Visa based on the course and even with that I can travel across Europe like to all the Schengen countries so like that thing is quite flexible in Europe in general so that is quite good yeah so is it like a Dropbox or like you've always come back to India to apply these visas because I know if every semester you have been to a different place so and each and every place needed the Visa like for the Europe it was a single visa and you you were able to study in all the other countries with that one single Visa uh no so for the Visa so actually since we had the British resident residence permit we could actually apply from the UK itself after our first semester so if you wanted to go to Malta we could apply from uh UK itself and the same goes with Lisbon so we just had to come back to the UK we didn't need to fly back to India so of course it's a choice if you want to apply from India but of course like a lot of my colleagues chose to apply from the UK itself and sometimes it's faster as well because since you aren't in India so you don't need that many documents so yeah just do whatever document you have there itself it's a continuation of your UK Visa you can see there already was quite a lot of your documents so they don't exactly exactly but yeah you have a really unique experience it's like travel and learn experience and yeah I think based on your course background you are really justifying it by actually traveling to different countries learning new things in terms of Tourism that's nice uh select can you like share any like any one of your good good experiences and a bad experience throughout your this study abroad if you've been to many countries I assume you have really so many of them but something that you would really remember uh I think mostly I've had like the best experiences and the best part is you get to meet so many people from so many different ethnicities from different countries and cultures so for this particular course we have like 25 students every year uh they've taken around 25 students every year and like almost everyone is from a different country so the I expected that when you said tourism I expected this it's like diversity Max yeah so really we have like people from the same country like two people from the same country or three people usually the Europeans you have more like you'll have more people from Italy or more from these kind of places but generally it's like everyone from everywhere and with me luckily I could study with two cohorts so with two batches and for me it's like just meeting like around 30 new people 30 or like different people from different countries so that's I think the part of it and of course like it's an Erasmus course so you can always connect with more people from different countries networking and it's a really good size I think the 30 is a really good number so you can actually interact with almost everyone and everyone knows you as well exactly yeah how how how would you react or like how was your experience when you found someone from your safe country uh actually like uh in the second cohort there's no one from I had one girl and actually I bonded well because like of course you find someone from your home and you know okay this person is at least I can speak my own language so it's always better so yeah we used to live together actually in the UK and it really helps so it helps you with cooking food because you don't like to cook food on your own so it's something like that like you just have someone with you yeah that's true yeah so that was a good experience actually and like I'm always very proud of India so I love having Indians that's nice so let's talk about bad experience what is that bad experience you would remember like forever that happened during your study abroad um the only bad experience I had was because I went during covert so like things were a bit little too much uh here and there like everything wasn't sure we weren't sure like okay we have to stay here or we need to go back home and when I was in Scotland specially like things were a bit like closed and people weren't there all around so I think that was one of the bad experiences but otherwise studying abroad I think it's like even the bad experiences are good I feel it's like you always learn from everything you experience so it's always good for me yeah actually code is actually hit everyone really hard that's true well right now if you're happy you're in Lisbon you're enjoying your course that's good definitely yeah so uh any advices for the students who are like planning to pursue masters from your University or from your course itself um I think the only advice is just apply in time like always start planning I think six months before you want to go somewhere and then like in general not for just this University because I was applying to multiple universities uh usually the deadlines are around December and January so even if you want to like not get this scholarship or anything it's always better to apply earlier and you never know because these scholarships you always get a chance to get them and they're always there before the month of Jan or December so you always have like a very good chance to get these scholarships and they definitely help like for this course if I had this scholarship I know I would have enjoyed way more than I'm doing right now and like with free mind with no work exactly no liabilities yeah without any liabilities exactly so yeah so it's like always look for scholarships and not just the scholarships from the college you always get like different scholarships from the countries as well so if you go to the UK there aren't multiple sites if you go to anywhere in Europe you get these scholarships from the country itself sometimes you get it from India also so I cannot list down the exact websites but there are there are multiple of them so yeah like that is the best advice I could give yeah that's a really nice advice so guys like do your research and make sure that you check out every single window possible that's nice well that was it from my side and it was really nice talking to you yeah it was great and thank you thank you so much for sharing your experience you had it really good study abroad experience I guess like three different countries and all yeah but thank you thank you so much thank you

2023-04-03 13:08

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