Or tips from more savvy (than we seem to be!) fresher parents/students?
Like:
Banking (best way to set something up where we can easily put money in his UK account? (Bank reps will be available during Freshers’s Week, but what are the best options?)
Best phone solutions (he has a newish iPhone) for both communicating there and with us at home?
Any clever solutions you came up with for issues we may not be anticipating?
Anything else you can think of that you wish had known/done?
On Sunday, we had a British-themed CEXIT party (my son’s name begins with a ‘C’ and he will be “exiting” the U.S. for a bit)… and of course (because we are beyond trite and corny, much to his embarrassment!), this included a photo op with Her Majesty. As he is scheduled to fly out of SFO on Friday evening to move into his college on Saturday, I am belatedly realizing I should have been putting less effort into the party planning and more into the last-minute “Leavers” details!
Banking- she was able to fill out everything at Barclay’s online before we got there and made an appointment to complete the process. FYI she needed her SSN which we did not have on us. We are using transferwise to move money, pm me your email and I can send you a referral for free initial transfer if you are interested. Very easy and low rates.
Phone- she got a monthly pay as you go plan from EE and swapped out her SIM. Just be sure the phone is unlocked before you leave.
UK Amazon Prime student account is free six months with student email address. She ordered a lot of things like desk organizer after move in.
Credit Card- she’s using her B of A student card which has no foreign transaction fees almost every where so she’s not needing a lot of cash.
Wait to buy books. Most of her classes did not require purchasing them.
Everything was really very smooth and easier than I thought it would be.
For Oxford town, Vodafone & Virgin have best reception. He won’t need a big plan- eduroam (the wifi system for people in the university) covers almost every corner of Oxford- and works in many of the other cities as well
He probably won’t buy any textbooks at all- the libraries have everything, and if they don’t they order it. No kidding- it’s amazing.
Take very little- UK students mostly don’t “do up” their rooms, and as he will be moving out every 10 weeks or so, you need it to be easy to do and undo.
Assuming he has a black suit with him for Matriculation?
IF you think that he will like going to balls, tell him to find the RAG table at Freshers Week & sign up (RAG = Raise and Give). They run casinos at the balls & a lot of other events. If you work the event, you work 1/2 the evening and get to go to the event (free) for the other 1/2. Ball tickets can be L100 and up, so you can have a lot of fun, do some good & not go broke. The balls aren’t stuffy events- black or white tie, but they have things like (really good) bands, bumper cars, etc. RAG is a popular activity, so signing up early is a good idea (my daughter is now accomplished at both dealing blackjack and running a roulette wheel- life skills?!, and has gone to an improbably number of balls). Consider sending him with black tie gear.
Using GiffGaff for his i phone. They sent us a new SIM card in the mail, so he just needs to pop it in once we get to the UK and activate the account. They have very reasonable plans (20GBP monthly for unlimited everything).
We have family in Surrey, so we have been ordering things from UK websites and having it delivered to them.
Feel free to PM me if you want to introduce our sons. Mine will be at Worcester.
She’s wrapping up her second week of classes. So far she says the homework for tutorials is easy (she has two chemistry classes and one math class) and labs are a review of what was covered in IB HL Chem. Slight adjustment to science/math terminology differences.
ease of connecting at other universities through eduroam seems to vary by university, but yes. Also, there is a free wifi network called The Cloud that a huge number of cafes and other public places all over the UK participate in & once you have the app you are good for all of them.
Also, if you need a cab, Royal Cabs (they have an app & you can tie a cc to it) is the most reliable that we found in Oxford. Note that for all taxis, there is a £5 flat fee for short runs
@HazeGrey & @Junipero, some of the ‘parent restaurants’ are Brownes, Cote and Gees. if it’s miserable, high tea by the fireplace at the Old Parsonage; if it’s nice Cherwell Boathouse. Good weather or bed, Turf Tavern.
@Junipero - Enjoy the amazing journey of being an Oxford parent. (it is fun for parents too)
-If arriving at Heathrow for the start of the school year there have him check when he gets to immigration if there is a student line which can be much, much shorter than the non EU line.
-I assume you know about the every 20 minutes direct bus from the Heathrow Central Bus Station to Oxford. If you use it and plan a return trip within 3 months from Oxford to the airport, a oneway ticket is £23 and a roundtrip is £30. https://airline.oxfordbus.co.uk
-Son has an iPhone 6 (first version of a 6) and we have AT&T as a carrier. In case you have AT&T and he hasn’t usedit outside the US they do require that the phone be authorized for international use which is just a matter of selecting it on your account page, in the store or with customer service. The whole phone thing was causing me great stress so before he left we signed up for the AT&T Silver Passport 300mb of data, 50 cent per minute calls and unlimited texting. The silver is $60 per month and we ended up just keeping it. He went over once, but we had signed up for alerts and were able to catch it right away. What happened was that he sent a large file (with some photos) from his room which has wifi. Unfortunately it didn’t actually send for several minutes and by that time he was out of wifi range.
-Have him get all of his sub fusc stuff early so the gown can hang up for a few days prior to matriculation.
-Son’s college (Oriel) offers formal hall (dinner) several times per week and he took full advantage of it. It made me happy because he was fed a well rounded meal. He says it is a great way to socialize because everyone at your table is starting and finishing at the same time so you are more apt to make friends vs. running in and grabbing some food, scarfing it down and quickly leaving.
I was told the evening food truck on High St outside the Examination building has the best chicken ever!
Amazon.co.uk is a great way to send him gifts, etc
I came to love FaceTime. Free if both in wifi and made me feel better to see his face. When his interest in face timing me wore off, we settled on a once a week schedule.
Late to the party but there is good info here I can pass along to S. He flew over on the 25th and is enjoying exploring, attending orientations, making friends from all over, etc. He’ll only be there for one year in a Masters program.
He used EE and said the sim switch was easy. Using WhatsApp and FB messages so far. Hoping to Skype in a few days. He got a Capital One card and a couple others without ATM fees/foreign transaction fees. I don’t know much else as he did everything himself, as an older kid, working and living out of state for several years prior to this.
Hope everyone has a great time! I’m loving living vicariously through photos so far.