UK Student Life homepage
Study, work or travel in the UK. British culture and life.
Search
Dictionary
Meetings
Changes
Newsletter
A-Z index
Translate
BBS Forum
About us
Contact us
Britain
Course
Life
Work
Links
English
Prepare
Personal
Travel
Ideas
< Up
About
General information about this website
     
Sections:
 Features of this site
Author
  Visitor data
  Advertising
  Acknowledgements
  Disclaimer
  Links


FEATURES

 Below is a list of some of the characteristics of this site:

Aim
The website has been created mainly to help people who come to the UK from other countries.

Target audience
The site is for anyone who has an interest in British culture and life. Many of the pages will be relevant to British people as well as those from other countries, to people of any age, and to people of all backgrounds. The website will be especially useful for international students at British universities or language schools - but you do not have to be a student!

Independent
The author of this website is not a member of any company, government department, religious group or school/university. The website has been financed by the author himself.

Free
There is no charge for using this website. This is so that everybody, rich or poor, can enjoy it. The site is full of information that may save you money.

British
Many websites concentrate on the United States and use American English, but this one concentrates on the United Kingdom. It will help you if you want to learn British English or to find out about British culture.

Simple English
Many websites are written in English which is very complicated. This site is written in a clear way, so that non-native English speakers can understand it. Links are provided to free online dictionaries and translation tools.

Visual
Hundreds of original photos have been used on the website, mostly taken by the website's author. The pictures aim to show various aspects of British life in a realistic way.

International
This site is for people from any country. Pages of useful links are provided for people from most parts of the world. The introduction page has been written in several languages. The site reflects the multicultural nature of the UK: for example, it includes major public events organised by different communities.

Web-based
This is not a book or brochure which has been put on the web. It has been written for the internet. It contains thousands of carefully chosen links, both to other parts of the site and to other websites which will be useful if you want more information.

Practical
This site doesn't just give general advice. It gives practical details: it doesn't assume you already know how to do things. It has been written by talking to many people about their own experiences, and whenever possible the author has personally tried the things that are suggested.

Comprehensive
This site covers a very wide range of subjects which are important for people coming to the UK. It considers all of the main aspects of study, work and private life. It gives information for people coming to the UK to study or to travel, or to work as an au pair, volunteer, nurse, teacher or in any part-time or full-time job. There should be something useful to you whatever your country, religion, age, sex or sexuality. You can use the search tool to find relevant pages on most subjects.

Back to top


AUTHOR
This web-site has been created as a personal initiative by Mark Chandler.
Born in the South of England in 1965, I studied maths/management studies at Cambridge University.
I worked in the market risk department of NatWest / Royal Bank of Scotland 1991- 2002.
Since mid-2002 I have been working full-time on this website.
My interests include foreign languages (French, German, Japanese) and cultures.
I organise a monthly social group in London called the London International Meetup: http://esl.meetup.com/2

If you have any comments or ideas about the site, please send an E-mail to Mark.

Back to top


VISITOR DATA

 UK Student Life receives an average of over 10,000 visits per day (as at December 2006).
The approximate split of visitors to UK Student Life by location is as follows (source: Google Analytics data for 3/4 December 2006):

Back to top


ADVERTISING

 If you wish to advertise on this website please contact Mark using this link: mark@ukstudentlife.com
Please state clearly what company or product is to be promoted. Adverts promoting alcohol, cigarettes, gambling or adult services are not permitted.
Mark can discuss with you the most appropriate possible ways of advertising on the site. The options include:

Banners: long campaigns

- The most common form of advertising is through banners, which appear on each page under the headers.
- The banners will be linked to your website, which will open in a new window. If you do not have a website then they can be linked to a relevant entry on this website's message board. If you do not have a banner then a simple one can be created for you.
- Adverts can only appear on pages if they are relevant to that page's topic. Mark can supply a list of relevant pages and the costs.
- Adverts will normally be for a period of 1 year, although 3 month or 6 month placements may also be considered.
- Ads are normally 120 x 60 banners or 468 x 60 banners. 120 x 120 buttons are also available at the same cost as 468 x 60 banners. Other sizes/types of ads such as skyscraper/tower ads, MPUs (message plus units), pop-ups and rich media ads are not permitted on this website.
- Animated GIF ads have a higher charge than static ads. Static ads may be GIF or JPG files, or short text that fits within a standard banner size.
- The cost depends on the viewing statistics for the pages on which the ads appear (estimated at the beginning of the advertising period based on viewing statistics over the previous year). Usually the charge will be based on the following CPMs (costs per thousand page impressions):

Ad type
Example
468 x 60 banner
(animated GIF)
468 x 60 banner
(non-animated)
(GIF/JPG/text)
120 x 60 banner
(animated GIF)
120 x 60 banner
(non-animated)
(GIF/JPG/text)

Banners: short campaigns

- There are two spaces for 120 x 60 banners top left and top right on each page (above the headers).
- These banners are shown on nearly all of the pages of the website.
- These banners may either be animated GIFs or non-animated GIF or JPG files.

Affiliate advertising

- Please let Mark know if your company has an affiliate advertising programme, and if this is managed by one of the affiliate networks.
- Payments for affiliate programmes are generally based on sales made by users who click on a link and then make a purchase within a specified number of days.

Competitions

- Another form of advertising is to offer a prize to be given away in a competition on the website.
- Competitions are shown on this page: Ideas/Competitions
- Competition entries will be made by someone sending an e-mail to Mark, who will choose the winner using a random number generator.
- E-mail addresses and other contact information will only be used to inform winners and losers about the result of the competition.
- If you are interested in this kind of promotion, please write to Mark giving details of the prizes to be offered and the suggested closing date.
- There is normally no charge for this kind of promotion (except for the cost of the prizes).

Other

- In some cases there may be ways of cooperating in a non-financial way, eg by offering a place on a familiarisation visit. Any website content which is written following this kind of arrangement will be created independently by the website author.
- This website does not maintain a database of users and therefore does not send out any newsletter, so advertising in this way is not possible.

Back to top


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank the many people who have helped him, including the many international students who have discussed their experiences of living in the UK. In particular, thank you to the following students for allowing me to interview them in detail: Tomomi Masumoto, Kaori Chikama, Reeko Taira, Mayumi Iida, Masahiro Takeshima, Yuko Sakai, Naoko Akizuki, Kazuko Ishigaki, Mami Akasegawa, Huijin Kim, Sangwon Yoo, Emi Maeda, Michiyo Mori, Lixin Rong, Kazue Nishizawa.

Thank you also to the translators of the introduction page:
Japanese: Tomomi Masumoto; Korean: Chaeran Kwon; Simplified Chinese: Zhelei Li; Traditional Chinese: Jack Wong; Spanish: Harsha Krishnan; Portuguese: Maurinone Mendes; French: Nathalie Gleisberg; German: Jochen Theis; Italian: Lorenzo Liesch; Russian: Alexander Panin; Polish: Dominik Janes; Czech: Jan Baloun; Arabic: Mohamad Barazi

The copyright owner of images (if not UK Student Life) is shown in the Alt text, which appears when the cursor is placed over an image.
Most of the photos were taken by the website's author, who retains the copyright on these.
To request use of any of the images, send an e-mail to Mark.

Webspace hosted by Fasthosts
Domain name registration by easily.co.uk: http://easily.co.uk
Website software: Macromedia Dreamweaver (web design) and Fireworks (image editting): http://www.macromedia.com
Bulletin board by phpBB: http://www.phpbb.com
Website search engine service: Google.com: http://www.google.com
Photos were taken using a Panasonic Lumix digital camera

Back to top


DISCLAIMER

The information contained on this website is presented in good faith for general guidance. No liability can be accepted for any loss or expense which results from relying on this information. Laws and regulations change: readers should check the current position with the relevant authorities before making personal arrangements (links to the websites of relevant government and other authorities are provided on this website). We are not responsible for the contents of the sites to which this site provides links, or for the quality of services provided by those sites.

Back to top


LINKS

Introduction in: English ; Japanese ; Korean ; Simplified Chinese ; Traditional Chinese ; Spanish ; Portuguese ; French ; German ; Italian ; Greek ; Russian ; Polish ; Arabic ; Czech

Home page: Home

Back to top

© UK Student Life 2002-2007


* Search this website (www.ukstudentlife.com) or the web:
Google
 
Web www.ukstudentlife.com