Over the weekend I sent in my acceptance to start a part-time masters in law in the fall. Remember the law class from last fall? It ended up going really well so I'd like to continue with it in the fall. Ironically, my local college had their funding cut so they won't offer the second year of this national course, so I had to look elsewhere. As well, while the course was interesting and practical, I have no plans to work in a law office or change careers at all, so something more academic would be a better fit now that I'm past all the intro coursework.
When I looked elsewhere, I began to get a little stuck; my local college made no differentiation on foreign vs. local tuition. Somehow, they accepted my 5+ years in the EU as authorizing me for local tuition. Not so on all of the bigger universities I was looking at, all of them were expecting to charge me as a foreign student as I have no permanent residency in the UK. But what about my documented time in DE? Not worth EU rates without an EU passport apparently. It became the difference between paying 3500 GBP and 9500 GBP which is too much when it's not work endorsed, i.e. paid, merely my personal interest. If I could have held on a few years, I could have qualified for residency and then started, but that would have pushed completion out to 10 years. Time is not on my side here... ;-)
Scholarship money? It became a catch 22 as sall of the cholarships from the US I had seen had residency requirements or that one is applying from the US, so I no longer qualified for those, even though I am still a proud US tax paying citizen.
In my quest to not pay 10k GBP, I started to look at distance learning programs, where location does not matter. In addition, I work from home most of the time, so I may as well do this from home as well. I found a few programs which really aligned with what I do professionally, so that it will supplement my current activities.
Therefore I put the envelope into the post this weekend to start a part-time two year's distance learning masters in law from a very nice university in southern england. The ironic thing is that this program is dead on with my interest area, so a perfect match. Had the local options not been so expensive, I probably would have missed it. :-)
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Thursday, December 03, 2009
The influence of the EU on the UK
Being a non-EU citizen in the EU is an interesting perspective. While we studied the EU law chapter in my law course, it caused a bit of passion on the topic, as to how being in the EU has impacted the UK. As I have no personal, historical perspective on this account, I tend to see it more from a black and white numbers or law basis.
As we know, I need to take the UK Driver's test. Background on that one is here and here. While doing a little research, I noticed that they are hiring Driver test examiners in the UK. Most interesting to me is under the 'brief description':
You’ll need to have held a UK or EU licence continuously for 4 years (and with no more than 3 current penalty points)
Well, that's me actually. I've held an EU license continuously for 4 years with no more than 3 penalty points. When I mentioned this to one of my UK colleagues, to borrow one of my favorite German terms, he ausgeflippt.
His key points were:
-There was probably some EU directive forcing the UK to allow other EU country citizens to apply.
-Driver examiners could then come over from other EU lands where they are used to driving on the other side of the road and other types of road signs, etc. Just because they hold an EU passport does not qualify them to examine UK drivers without intrinsic UK road knowledge, and at a very minimum, a UK driver's license.
-->EU Directive 91/439/EEC from 1991 abolished the need for EU community members to exchange drivers licenses, btw, and established that member licenses are fully recognized in other member countires.
-->From this act also: 'The work of driving examiners must be monitored and supervised, by a body authorized by the Member State, to ensure correct and consistent application of fault assessment in accordance with the standards laid down in this Annex'.
Freedom in a small frame, this EU...
As we know, I need to take the UK Driver's test. Background on that one is here and here. While doing a little research, I noticed that they are hiring Driver test examiners in the UK. Most interesting to me is under the 'brief description':
You’ll need to have held a UK or EU licence continuously for 4 years (and with no more than 3 current penalty points)
Well, that's me actually. I've held an EU license continuously for 4 years with no more than 3 penalty points. When I mentioned this to one of my UK colleagues, to borrow one of my favorite German terms, he ausgeflippt.
His key points were:
-There was probably some EU directive forcing the UK to allow other EU country citizens to apply.
-Driver examiners could then come over from other EU lands where they are used to driving on the other side of the road and other types of road signs, etc. Just because they hold an EU passport does not qualify them to examine UK drivers without intrinsic UK road knowledge, and at a very minimum, a UK driver's license.
-->EU Directive 91/439/EEC from 1991 abolished the need for EU community members to exchange drivers licenses, btw, and established that member licenses are fully recognized in other member countires.
-->From this act also: 'The work of driving examiners must be monitored and supervised, by a body authorized by the Member State, to ensure correct and consistent application of fault assessment in accordance with the standards laid down in this Annex'.
Freedom in a small frame, this EU...
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