Study Overseas

Further Education Colleges in England offer a variety of courses that can lead on to university, jobs or further training. Courses range from Business Studies to Horticulture, and just about anything else you can think of.

Nearly all courses are made up of a number of small parts called modules or units, which usually cover one subject such as Marketing. Some of the units are compulsory and must be done to achieve a qualification, while others are optional, and offer you a wider choice within your chosen subject area. This means that if you do a course in Hotel and Catering, for example, and although you have to cover the basics, you can pick a set of subjects that most interest you. This makes courses available in Further Education colleges in the UK very flexible for anyone aged sixteen or over.

The most popular courses for studying post-16 are Business Studies-related; more students study this subject than any other. But what do you actually study on Business Studies courses? There are nearly always compulsory units on marketing, human resources, the business environment, business finance and business at work. In addition, you can study customer service, business law, IT in business, and management accounting. You will also be encouraged to do work experience while studying for your qualification, either for two or three weeks together, or one day a week for the whole year. This will normally be work in a company, where you get the chance to explore how organisations operate and experience working life. During work experience, you will be visited by your lecturer and keep a diary; you may also be asked to research an aspect of the company such as the Health and Safety arrangements, recruitment, marketing or publicity.

Every college student is supported by a tutor, so you will have one specific person that you can talk to about your studies and progress. They will also be available to give advice on more personal issues such as money or health. As well as the tutors, colleges also have specialist advisors who are able to assist with many problems, such as housing or legal problems. In addition, many colleges offer activities to students which are outside normal teaching. These could include sports, music, drama, languages, first aid or community work.

Another very popular area of study in the UK is Leisure, Recreation and Tourism. Increasingly 16 numbers of people are employed in the leisure and recreation industries, and these courses cover a wide range of things you need to know if you want to work in this area. You are likely to have some compulsory units on investigating leisure and recreation, safe practices in the industry, the sports industry, marketing, and customer service. You can then decide on further options such as exercise physiology, sports coaching or hospitality.

For Tourism courses, there are similar core units related to the industry, but your options are varied and could include travel agency operations, staging conferences, business travel, tour operations or entertainment. It is also useful to take additional courses for the travel industry, such as ticketing or air travel, as these could increase your chances of finding employment. Many UK students study a language as well, such as Spanish or Italian, as that can help them into the job market.

These courses always involve trips and visits, which can help students to compare two completely different tourist spots, such as the English Lake District and Brighton; or how different leisure centres are run and organised such as a golf club and swimming pool. In addition, students on travel and tourism courses usually have at least one trip outside the UK to study tourism in a different setting. They are also often advised to take First Aid courses and, if working in swimming pools, a Pool Lifesaver award. Leisure and Tourism courses offer wonderful opportunities to get jobs, travel or move on to taking a degree in management of either sports or tourism. There are some occupationally specific courses known as NVQs that relate exactly to the sort of job you want to do. These cover a wide variety of areas, and include hospitality service, reception, retail operations and restaurant management.

Another popular area of study is engineering - there are a whole range of different courses, from electrical or software engineering, to motor vehicle engineering or construction. Depending on your particular interests you will find differences in course content, but you will have to study mathematics, IT and engineering principles, as well as learning to apply all of these. There are general courses that offer the opportunity to study elements of engineering, such as the engineering business environment, application of new technology, engineering materials, applied science or maths for engineers. Alternatively, you can study a very specific course, such as aircraft engineering, engineering assembly, production engineering or fibre-optics.

Whatever you do, each course has a high practical element, and you will spend plenty of time in workshops. You will be encouraged to do some work experience in an engineering company, as this gives you a much better insight into the real life of an engineer. You can get technician jobs with the qualifications you receive at college, but they also open the way onto degrees in engineering at University. You will, however, be expected to have a good level of maths and IT skills.

This is only a small sample of the enormous variety of subjects you can study at English FE Colleges - so why not try one?

Author
Maggie Greenwood