News

On the Foreign Students Blog we like to share with you interesting news from around the world and feature the very best content the web has to offer.

'The Hedgehog'  by Pavel Smirnov, is an intimate short-film about a boy and his new pet hedgehog, Pavel is a student of Cinema and Television at St. Petersburg state university in Russia and has received international recognition for his camera work.

The film is an adaptation of a novel by Grigory Gorin, the story in this film centres around a father who is trying to watch a football match at home, only to be hindered by the bad signal of his television, which makes it difficult to follow the game.

While this alone is troublesome for the man, soon his young son returns to their house bearing a gift inside a hat, a prickly hedgehog which the boy had recently exchanged in return for a valuable lottery ticket...

View the film below in Russian with English subtitles, also available in high definition:

The landscape of the UK higher education system has gone through a huge process of change over the past year and the effects this change will bring are still largely unknown. One group of students who face increasing uncertainty over their position in the system are foreign students. With international student visas becoming harder to obtain and EU students facing the same increased fees as UK students, many feel that overseas students are being marginalised.

A recent study (Patterns and Trends in UK Higher Education) showed that international student numbers have increased hugely in the last decade, but as the new rules are introduced, the real question is whether this trend can continue.

Increased Tuition Fees

There are a number of issues to be considered when addressing this question. First of all, there is the fact that EU students, just like British students, are facing the new £9,000 a year tuition fees from 2012 onwards. This sudden tripling of the fees will inevitably make European students think twice about coming to study in the UK, especially when there is already more expense and effort involved to study outside of their own country.

After being the first to expose a brand new piece of graffiti that has all the characteristics of street artist Banksy, ForeignStudents.com can now exclusively reveal how it was created. The piece is over two storeys up and rumour has been rife as to how the artist produced it. However, as the photo above (taken last Sunday 20th November) shows, an elaborate scaffold was set up to make sure nobody caught the artist in the act.

It all started on the morning of last Saturday (19th November), when two men began unloading scaffolding from a white van. As one began erecting the scaffolding, the other walked up and down protectively. By 2pm the scaffold was finished and white tarpaulin covered parts of it.

Thinking the scaffolding was the start of construction work planned to redevelop the disused building, a member of staff came back that night and took a photo (photo 1 below).

The football world is in shock after the 42-year-old manager of the Wales football team was found dead on Sunday morning. Despite appearing on BBC programme ‘Football Focus' just the day before, Gary Speed was found hanged in his family home.

Tributes from friends and colleagues have been pouring in, as everyone struggles to come to terms with Speed's unexpected suicide. The sentiment repeated over and over is one of complete shock. Even to those closest to him, Speed appeared a happy man, with a loving family and a new career showing plenty of early promise.

Glittering Career

Speed had enjoyed a long and glittering football career in England, playing in the Premier League for Leeds, Everton, Newcastle, Bolton and Sheffield United. He was the first player to reach 500 Premier League appearances and still holds the record as the outfield player with most caps for Wales.

After finally retiring last year, he took on the role as Wales manager in December 2010, and the team were starting to show impressive progress under his control.

With today being one of the best days of the year to save money, with shops slashing their prices for Black Friday, we thought we'd bring you some top tips to help with your student finances. Below you can find easy ways of making extra cash, the best ways to save money whilst shopping and some top tips to make your budget go further.