Living costs at Sheffield

Hi, everybody.
I have been accepted at Sheffield University.

Since I am an EU citizen, I'd need a accomodation.
I would like to know how much I am going to spend if I go to Sheffield. If possible, try to describe the prices, something like this:
Rent - x£
Food - y£
etc

Thanks

Hi! Firstly congratulations on receiving an offer to study here - you will love the city and University. Where abouts do you live at the moment, if you don't mind me asking?

The biggest cost will be rent. I would strongly advise staying in University-owned accommodation; it is of very high quality, in great locations, and is the best way to meet lots of people at the University. Applications are open now, and I would advise applying early. Rent varies dependent on the room type - with the cheaper options you will share a bathroom, for a little more you can have an en-suite.

Food is also a significant expense - but can vary a lot. If you shopped for most stuff in the local Sainsbury's supermarket, cooked most of your meals from scratch, I would say that you would spend around £25 per week. Obviously if you were very frugal with your money, you could spend less, whilst if you have expensive tastes, you will spend more than this. If you decide to buy lunch each day when away from your flat, this also soon adds up (£3 for a meal deal lunch, vs. £1.50 for a packed lunch). You will come to realise that buying a ready-made lasagne from the supermarket will cost you £3.50, but you could spend £10 and make your own - it will make 6 portions (so saves money) and is probably nicer/healthier. A good lesson in life learned by students is to minimise inputs whilst maximising outputs (e.g. in the lasagne example you would be spending less and getting a better outcome).

Textbooks can be a significant cost, depending on your course. Textbooks can be very expensive, but if you put up with borrowing from the library, then you could avoid this expenditure. But if you were to buy second-hand copies of the key text books, I would allow for around £80-100 a year.

Socialising - a big part of student life here in the UK. I spend more on going out than I do on food. In first year I spent around £80 a week socialising - but I did go out a lot (to nightclubs three times a week), I went to pubs regularly, we went to the cinema/bowling/into the Peak District, etc. Some people spend a lot less than I do on this area (but some do manage to spend more). I would advise you to join in as much as possible - join sports teams, departmental societies, go out with your flatmates, etc. However, it all adds up. In second and third years, you will spend a lot, lot less in this area.

Obviously there are a lot of other miscellaneous purchases that you forget about: clothes, stationery, bus fares, train tickets, etc.

Hope this helps - if you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

Hi there! I live in north of Portugal, in Porto.

I would be studying Aerospacial Engineering, I don't know how much do the books cost.

Using the 25£ average, per month, I would spend 100£. Let's assume I take a room around 120£ (includes water, electricity and internet, right?) per week, that would give 480£ per monthe. Adding both up, just on food and room I'd spend 580£. I honestly don't go out to much, not even here in my home country. Sure, I like to go to a bar with some friends or hang-out, but I'm not that guy who goes to discos almost every night.

So, at least, I'll be spending around 610£ per month, correct?

Ola! Eu estudo engenharia aeroespacial em Sheffield, atualmente eu sou no primeiro ano assim se voce tem qualquer perguntas, possivelmente eu possa ajudar? Eu sabo uma pequena quantidade de portugues, assim desculpe se eu nao falo bem.

I'd say a safe, low budget is about £7,000 per year. I'd advise against budgeting on a monthly basis, and sticking to yearly and weekly, unless you're staying in Sheffield during the holidays as calculating month to month is a bit complicated otherwise.

The part of that budget which will vary the most is the rent (and in later years utilities), to be safe I'd say about £4900 per year will go there although if you're willing to make sacrifices you can get that down to about £4100-4500. Then you'll have a few one-off costs at the beginning of the year like kitchen utensils, cutlery, bedding which will cost about £100-150. You may also have society memberships which I'd set aside £30 for, double that if you're going to join a lot of things or plan on joining a gym.

Then for week by week costs, depending on how careful you want to be with your money and how much you eat, set aside £25-50 per week for food. To be honest £15-20 is doable but it's best to have some breathing room for the times when you eat out or feel like treating yourself. Then if you want to join the uni gym it'll be another £7, sport societies will be about £3 per session as some will have two sessions per week, others types of societies will vary. For going out I'd say have about £25 for both drinking and non-drinking outings. So yeah roughly £60+ per week which if you're only here in term time works out to about £1900 per year.

Olá! Estás a gostar de Engenharia Aeroespacial em Sheffield? Gostas da Universidade?

So, based on what you said, per week, I should spend around £7,500 per year, correct?
How much money should I carry when I first arrive at Sheffield?

Eu gosto do curso, mas muitos nao fazem porque nos temos algum professors ruims e nos fazemos mais conteúdo interdisciplinario do que aeroespace. Tudo o mundo adora a universidade. And I don't know how to translate the next bit so: it's a lively university with lots of activities and great people, you're bound to find people you get on with and there is probably a Portuguese society if you ever feel you want to meet people and have friends from your home country.

Yes £7,500 would be a good amount. How much money you should have when you first get here will depend on how long you're planning on having that money for. If it's just for the first term then I'd say £3,000 should be enough, £3,500 if you want to be on the safe side.

Então estás a dizer que Sheffield tem maus professores (maus=ruins)?
O que queres dizer com "conteúdo interdisciplinar"? Não se focam tanto em aeroespacial? Focam-se em quê?

Yeah, I'd imagine there is probably a portuguese society. Would you recommend Aerospace in Sheffield? I also have Manchester and Southampton to go if I want. I'm not sure which one to pick, but you scared me a little with "bad teachers".

How long is the first term?

Nós temos alguns maus professors, há uma abundancia de bons também. Por interdisciplinar quero dizer nós estamos mathematica, mecanico, electronica, materiais, sistemas e computacao, há apenas alguns módulos aeroespaciais mas é semelhante em mais outros universidades.

Aerospace at Sheffield isn't for everyone, if you're someone who is good at finding their own way and opportunities then it is a good choice as it has a lot to offer. If you're not great at that and don't mind losing out on some things unrelated to the course like the student life and city that Sheffield offers then I'd say go for Southampton.

Porquê que consideras os professores maus professores?
Todas essas disciplinas que tens estão relacionadas com aeroespacial ou vês como um fardo?

What do you mean with "find their own (...) opportunities"? Do you have an opinion about the city of Southampton? And what do you think of Manchester?

Esses professors nao apreciam ensino, eles sao professors por suas pesquisa apenas.
Ele depende, eu gosto porque introduz as especialidades melhor mas alguns nao gostam porque isso significa voce estuda disciplinas que voce pode nao gosta.

I mean that at Sheffield there's more of an expectation to be independent in finding ways to better your learning, for example there are the Simurq (aerospace competitions), Formula Student, Space exploration and RAeS societies to get involved with which can give you great experience whereas at other universities similar things will be part of the course (although from what I've seen you will do those things later on or less in depth). The city of Southampton is a bit small, you're not going to have the same ability to go out and do things as you would in Sheffield. Manchester's good but it's doesn't have Sheffield's Student's union or reputation in aerospace.

Also the first term is 13 weeks long including freshers week, which is too long but it's the same everywhere. You'll have a partial reading week during teaching week 7 and during teaching week 12 you also won't have many lectures as a lot of modules finish in week 11, so during those times you won't have many lectures and I'd advise that you consider going home for that week or leaving early if you can afford it because you will almost certainly get homesick during the first term. Even in later years people get homesick because of how long the first term is.

Compreendo. E esses professores desmoralizam-te ou prejudicam o teu ensino? Como é que contornas isso?

You don't do group works in Sheffield? If you don't mind, how many hours do you study, at home (alone, that is), per week?

So, the first term is 3 months long, correct? When are the exams after the first term?

É irritante e um pouco desmoralizador assim voce aprenda o conteúdo sozinho e pode nao va as suas palestras. Mas sua conteúdo é facil assim nao é muito ruim.

We don't really do group works, we have a couple of week long group projects but they're not aerospace specific, then there's a poster and in third year if you're on the masters course you build a UAV (but some other unis do that in second year and in the Simurq society you can do it in first year).

Yep 3 months long. The exam period is straight after you get back from Christmas holidays but you won't have exams until two weeks later as you have CAD and drawing lectures then the global engineering challenge during those weeks.

Nao, nao realmente. O semestre primeiro é facil relativamente e notas de palestra podem ser encontrados online.

Desenho é bastante simples. Most of it is learning how to use rulers and protractors in a certain way and which pencils to use for what. The global engineering challenge is a departmental, week long event where you get put in a group with 5 other engineers from different disciplines and have to design a solution for a given problem (which you get to choose beforehand) in a third world country. As for how much time I'm studying each week, semester 1 has about 30 contact hours per week, semester 2 has about 20 although it varies quite a lot depending on if you go to tutorials and how many labs you have that week. On top of that maybe 5-10 hours of studying in a normal week then around 20 when you inevitably have a busy week with lots of hand in dates.

Quais as matérias que abordas no primeiro semestre? O que estás a achar do segundo semestre?

A sério? Eu nunca tive geometria a nível avançado.
Sounds cool! What are your schedules? Classes from 8 am to 6 pm?
How does the grading system works in the UK?

Going to answer in English because I'm getting a bit sleepy

You do the same modules in both semesters (except introduction to aerospace where you don't have any lectures after halfway through semester 1), but in the second semester you have fewer lectures for most of the modules and the content is much more difficult as you'll likely have done a lot of the semester 1 content at school.

I'm not sure I'd call it geometry, I'm not really sure how to describe it.

Semester 1 is 9-6 most days except Wednesday because everyone gets Wednesday afternoons off so they can do societies. You also have quite a few gaps between 1 and 5 when you don't have a lab that day. In semester 2 it's much more relaxed, because a couple of modules have finished early currently I have Friday off, only have one lecture on Monday and 2 or 3 lectures the other days and start 11am or later everyday except Thursday which starts at 9 (I think a lot of people miss that lecture though )

The grading system in the UK is: 40% to Pass, I think 45% for a 3rd, 50% for a 2:2, 60% for a 2:1 and 70% for a 1st. A 2:1 or above is what you want to be aiming for as that is the entry requirement for most graduate schemes and as long as you put in some effort that's what you will get.

"much more difficult" -> what are you taught in the second semester?
Do you have good teachers explaining it? Can you understand it well studying at home?

Really? You have lots of free time on the second semester?? That seems cool! And on 3rd semester, do you know anything about it?
In the 1st semester, can you find time to yourself and to study or you have no time at all?

Thanks

Bem, em semestre primeiro eles ensinam conteúdo que deve ser ensinado no A levels, como uma fundacao, entao em semestre segundo eles ensinam conteúdo em um nível mais relevante para a universidade. A maioria dos professors sao bons em explicar mas as notas de palestras sao suficientes para compreende.

From what I've heard 3rd semester has similar contact hours to what I have now but you have to do more independent study. If you try, yes you will have time to yourself although you have to accept that you will lose some evenings to studying, probably not enough to impact on your social life and taking part in societies though.

De nada

Portanto, não é nada de outro mundo graduar-se em Engenharia Aeroespacial, pois não? Com um pouco de trabalho em casa e atenção nas aulas, consegue-se, é isso?
Só por curiosidade, nas aulas consegues ver bem para o quadro mesmo na última fila?

Is the 1st semester the one with more lessons and with the worst schedule? That might be good, actually.

About student life, how do other students interact with you (and with foreigners)? Are they nice?

Thanks