I wonder how many of you are a football fan. As we know, football is the most popular sport in the whole world. Nearly everyone knows about football. I don’t really know much about the sport but I still know the rough idea about football.  In my opinion, most popular football clubs comes from England. The popular clubs who played for English premier league are Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and others. Personally I’m not a football fan, but I had the opportunity to go to Manchester City. One of the most popular football clubs comes from this region. The nickname of the club is the red devil and the club itself is very synonym with the colour red.

History of Manchester United

Manchester United Football club is a professional football club that plays in the English Premier League. The club had been established from the year 1878. Previously, it was named Newton Heath LYR Football Club and it was changed to Manchester united in 1902. Obviously, it is a football club based in Old Trafford, Manchester.  Manchester United is one of the most successful clubs after winning 18 league titles, 11 Football Association Cups winning the league cups for four times. Because of the club’s success, it is also known widely as the wealthiest football team in the world with the worth of 1.19 billion pounds.

The current manager of the club is Alex Ferguson. He is the most successful Manchester United manager. He already helped the club winning 26 major honours since 1986. In addition, the players of the team consist of world’s most popular football players such as Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, Park Ji Sung and Rio Ferdinand. Previously, famous players such as David Beckham and Christiano Ronaldo were also a part of the Manchester United Team.

Stadium

The old Trafford stadium was named the home of Manchester United. Did you know that originally, the plan for the stadium was to built it with the capacity of 100 000 people? But due to some budget constraints, the capacity of the stadium had been reduced to 77 000 people. It was opened in 19 February 1910. Due to the 2^nd world war, the old Trafford stadium had been partially destroyed. After that, the club received 22,278 pounds from the War Damaged Commission and the stadium was rebuilt.

Manchester City

Manchester City is situated in the south-central part of North West England. The ethnicities are 75.8% white, 11.1% South African, 5.5 Black, 4.3% East Asian and others and another 3.35 of mixed race. The Landmark includes the Manchester Town Hall in Albert Square which is considered as the most important Victorian Buildings in England. There are also tall buildings such as CIS Tower and the Beetham Tower.

The Trafford Centre

For those who like shopping, you can find all your favourite stores in the city like Primark, New look, Debenhams Marks and Spencer and others. I had the opportunity to go to the Trafford Centre and it was great since I love (window) shopping. They have really big stores and you can get to buy anything you wish there. When I went there, there had the filming of a Television show about dance talents. I wonder when they will put it up on the Television.

Tram

I’ve never really seen a tram before. I’ve heard of it but we don’t have trams in our country. For those who do not know what a tram is, it is a type of train that go through roads in the city. It is convenient due to the existence of rail service at the city. I had the chance to take the tram from Piccadilly towards Bury, just for the sake of riding the tram. It was quite enjoyable and I can go sightseeing with the interesting transport. The Manchester Piccadilly was the busiest English Railway station outside London in the year 2007 and 2008. When I went there, there are really a lot people doing their weekend shopping, sightseeing, travelling and the streets are very busy.

How to go there

From Birmingham, you can go there by train, Megabus, virgin train, Cross country and others. Previously, I went to Manchester by Megabus. It cost me 8 pounds online. Train is more expensive by price comparison. By bus, I will take about 3 hours. Go to the bus station, from there, took a day saver for bus to old Trafford. If you straight away want to go to the Old Trafford Stadium, it will take about 15 Minutes trip to Manchester United Stadium. To tour the stadium, you have to pay about 15 pounds to enter and also visit the Manchester United museum.

Other than that, there are also many other attractions in Manchester. You can visit the Manchester Museum and Bridgewater hall. And if you are a fan of performance arts, you can go to Manchester theatres where they have quite a number of excellent theatres that regularly host local theatrical productions, dramas, comedies and others. If you like sightseeing, you can visit the Fairfield Moravian Settlement. It is located at Ashton – Under - Lyne region of Manchester. It has beautiful 18^th century buildings, historic church and a very attractive surrounding. In Manchester, they also have a big Ferris wheel located at the Exchange Square. The best place to walk around and experience the city is by going to the Albert Square, Exchange Square, Piccadilly Gardens, Shambles Square and others.

My trip to the football city was so great. I would like to go to the city again if I got the chance to. It is such a pretty city with lots of attraction especially the football club and the stadium. Lots of people from all over the world came here either to see the match or just to see the stadium. I felt really lucky to have the chance to visit the place.

p/s: I'm sorry if I got some of the facts wrong. I just took it from random website since I've already mention that I'm not really a football fan and I'm not living in Manchester. But it was really fun travelling to places we don't know because that's where the challenges came by. :)

Laila Abu Hassan

Uitm Shah Alam Malaysia

BCU International Office Intern, 2011

Last week, the student service department of Birmingham’s City University is having the event called the National Student’s Money Week Road Show from 7^th March until 11^th March 2011.  It was organized by a part of NASMA (National Association of Student Money Advisers. You can go to NASMA’s official website at www.nasma.org.uk for further information regarding NASMA’s background, events, projects and others. It is basically developed to relieve the poverty of students through advice, providing information regarding money matters, training and also funding.

The Features of the Event

·         -Disabled students allowance advice

·         -Money management workshop and student calculator

·         -An introduction to funder finder

·         -Chat live competitions

·         -The conservatoire jazz band

Play Your Money right

Those who come to the road show can go to the booths and answer the financial questions provided. You might be lucky enough to win special prizes.

The Claws Clinic

Ensure the students are getting the better deal by having their bank contact checked out by a crack team of BCU’s law students.

Student finance

Any inquiries about student’s tuition fees can be asked at the student finance booths.

Online Competitions

You also can join the online competitions. Competitions such as “name the pig, best money saving tips, the value of a good CV and also value that visa” can be joined at the event and also can be joined online. Simply go to www.bcu.ac.uk/chatlive if you are too busy to go to the event but interested to enter the competition. It is a competition specially made for students. There will be questions on funds, financial and others. The competition was opened daily until 3p.m.

The event was held for the whole week. However, it was held on different places all over the BCU faculties such as at the Baker Hall and also at the Conservatoire and others. On the 1^st day which is on the 7^th March, the money week was held at the Baker building. There are a lot of booths provided by the dedicated student services’ staffs. There are reception booths, Student Union booths, student service booths, money matters booths, competition booths, insurance booths and a few others. The students can go straight to the specific booths that will give them the assistance they needed.

On the next day they will move to faculties at the city and at the millennium point. They also offer the same booths and services although they move to different places. The people who studied at the conservatoire or at the city campus will also be able to join this event. It is a vey good event to be participated by students since money issue related closely with students. Students have to have a good money management in order to pay their fees, cost of living, cost of doing assignments and others.

At the event, they provide advices and guidance on how to manage money, information on part time jobs and also assistance to student who have problem with their financial problem. For example, if the international student face problem back at their home country, and needed to fly back, NASMA will be able to provide the necessary support in term of financial means. The same thing also applies top students with disabilities. The National students’ Money week road show will provide assistance to students in need.

Personally, I think events like this should be done regularly. The students also should take this opportunity to seek guidance and advices from the friendly student services staffs regarding the financial problems that they are facing. Let’s hop that this event will be held again in the near future.

(download)

Click here to download:

elections-2011-HlgrDHwwyfhdtyzyGprJ.zip (1.43 MB)

The newly-elected Executive Officers will take up their positions on 1 July 2011. For more information, see: www.birminghamcitysu.com/voice/elections

 I’ve been hearing stories from my friend that went overseas about this place that is very synonym with chocolate. The place is called Bournville. My friends had been saying how awesome this place is.  I must say I have the once in a lifetime opportunity to visit there.  Bournville is very well known with its chocolate attraction. The Cadbury factory or also called the Cadbury World is the main tourist attraction towards Bournville.

The history of Cadbury World is a very interesting topic. The scientific name for cocoa is Theobroma cacao. It is also called as cocoa.  Did you know that cocoa is originally come from Mexico, Central and South America? Cocoa mass was used originally in Mesoamerica as a beverage and as foods ingredients. It has been recorded that chocolate has been used as drinks before people consume it like it was today. Other than that, the history also recorded that the white pulp around the cocoa beans was used as a sweetener for an alcoholic beverages. After that, come the inventions of mechanical mills that produce cocoa butter and after the industrial revolution. People start consuming chocolate as sweet treats like we do today.

            The history of Cadbury starts when John Cadbury starts a coffee, tea, and chocolate drinking business. He produced the chocolate drink himself. He developed his business from drinking chocolate to variety of cocoa product. His business was successful and he also able to obtain the warrant to supply cocoa to the palace. Now, Cadbury chocolate is so popular that you can find it everywhere in the whole world.

The Bournville history starts when Richard and George Cadbury (John Cadbury’s sons) are looking for new premises which are accessible to roads, rivers and transportation. Later on they buy the land at Bournbrook estate due to the good location. They rename the estate to Bournville and the Bournville Cadbury Company was opened on 1879. Now, the place is developed into the Cadbury World where tourists are able to visit and see for themselves the chocolate making processes. 

At the Cadbury World, they have developed 14 zones that each inform the visitor about chocolate and Cadbury in a very interesting way. The first part of the Cadbury World told the visitors about the history of chocolates in replicas and informative notes provided.  After that, they have video demonstration about the history of Cadbury and how Cadbury and Sons develop the company from scratch.

There is also sensory cinema presentation where the visitors can experience the chocolate –making procedures from the selection of the best cocoa beans from Ghana, towards how they shipped and process the beans to extract the cocoa butter, thick chocolate and others. Then they explained how they send the separated cocoa extract to three different factories in the United Kingdom. After that they show the processes of making chocolate which the Cadbury Chocolate factory is very proud of, The Dairy Milk Chocolate.

After that, we are shown with videos of how each types of famous Cadbury chocolate such as Buttons, Tray, Dairy Milk, and others are made. We also been able to see how the chocolate is actually made since the Cadbury world is connected to the Cadbury factory. We can see a lot of machines and boxes of ready-made chocolates, up for distributed to the stores. 

We also can have a ride at the kids’ section where we can find the cocoa bean’s world. After that, we also experience writing with chocolate. There are also demonstrations of how to make chocolate tray, hand-made unique chocolates like football-shaped chocolate, high heels shoes-shaped chocolate and others.

I also liked the fact that they are giving out free chocolate. They gave a few bars of chocolate to the visitors to try and they also give free samples of dairy chocolate mixed with something of our choices such as rice crispy, jellybeans, popcorn and others.

The best part of the trip is the when we have already finished looking around the area and it’s finally time for chocolate shopping! I personally bought £27 worth of chocolates. Of course I bought them to give them to my friends and family. I am very fascinated with the different type of Cadbury chocolate that they have. Some of them don’t even exist back in my home country.

My trip to Cadbury world was so enjoyable and I got so many inputs there. Now, I know the history of chocolate and also Cadbury. I’ll remember it whenever I ate a Cadbury chocolate. I think Cadbury world is the best place for visit if you are a fan of chocolate. I am planning to go there again in the near future. I must say that I am very fortunate to visit one of the best tourist attractions here in the Birmingham.

I'll upload the pictures sometime this week. :)

Laila Abu Hassan

Intern @ BCU International Office

My name is Laila and I’ve been in Birmingham for a month. Birmingham is a beautiful place and offers a lot of things that I couldn’t find at my home country. One thing that I took note is, the food prices here is higher than my home country. For example, a lunch set worth of £ 3.99 is 4 times higher than the lunch set in Malaysia. Back home, we usually spend about £1 or maximum of £2 on lunch. I don’t know about other international students. Others might consider £4 per meal is cheap. If you share the same thought as me, I’ll suggest cooking your own meal and bring them along if you have classes. So, you don’t have to spend much on lunch.

Follow my easy steps. Cook some light and simple lunch such as sandwich in the morning. If you are an expert at cooking, why don’t you cook some heavy meal such as rice or pasta the night before, and warm it in the morning? Doing this might save you about £4 per day since you are not sending your money for food at the cafes. And you can save up to £20 per week! You can spend all the extra money to go travelling or shopping. Anything that you prefers.

If you are living nearby BCU or at the accommodation residences, you can go to ASDA and the One Stop Centre.  You also can walk a bit to Aston road where you can find Tesco. You also can try to go to Wing Yip market. Especially if you are an Asian like me, I also suggest going to Wing Yip since they have all types of Asian food. They sell spices, instant noodles, ketchups, soy sauce, coconut, lemongrass, and exotic fruit such as Rambutan, and Durian. ( if you don't know what durian and rambutan is, gooole image it! :D )

If you are living at the city, the best place to buy your grocery shopping is at the Bullring Market. It is located nearby the Bullring shopping area. To go there form BCU, you can take a bus to the city centre and walk a bit towards Bullring area. Or you also can take a train from Perry Barr Train Station towards the New Street Station at the Birmingham City Centre. The New Street Station is connected to the Bullring area. You can find the Bullring Market when you step out of the Bullring Shopping complexes.

The market has two sections. One is an indoor market and another is an outdoor market. At the outdoor market, they mainly sell food.  For those who want to buy some vegetables, you can find lots of fresh vegetables there with just 1 pound per small basket. They sell carrots, cabbages, chillies, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, garlic, mushroom and others. Just name it!

There are also fresh fruits such as strawberries, cherries, oranges, grapes, apples and others in all type, shapes and sizes. They also have exotic Asian fruit like Durian. There are also other things that they sell such as eggs, cheese, flower, and breads. Apart from that, they also have clothes, undergarments, DVD’s and electronic devices. Apart from food, you also can buy other things that you need.

In the indoor market, there are a lot of other things that you need to look at. They sells cosmetics, accessories, footwear, clothes, curtains, costumes and other thing that you can think of with such a low price.

There are also the meat and poultry section. For Muslim, there is also a Halal section at the market.  So, it is easy for Muslim to find Halal food at Birmingham. You can find it here at the market. Apart from that, they also have seafood and exotic fish that I never looked at.  If you are a fan of frozen food like fish fillets, sausages, frozen vegetables and nuggets, you also can find it at the indoor market. It is located at the Frozen Food section. There’s a huge sign so there’s no way you’ll missed it.

Coming from a South East Asian country, I cannot live without instant noodles and some Malaysian food like soy sauce. So, the market is one of the places that I can find all the ingredients to cook a Malaysian food.  I find that by preparing my own meal, I also can learn to cook, which is a basic survival factor in living at a foreign country.

Knowing places like this also helps in budgeting. Since I am a student, and I did not have any part time job, I do not have an income. So, I really need to plan my budgeting really careful so that I would not have face a problem later with my financial issues.

I really hope the information regarding my trip to the Bullring Market will become beneficial to the other international students. I’ll be looking forward to posting more articles soon.

I've uploaded a video on youtube regarding my visit to the market. Here is the link.

My name is Laila Abu Hassan and I am a final year Mass Communication student at MARA University of Technology (UiTM) in Selangor, Malaysia. My major is in Advertising at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies. My faculty has been sending students overseas for internship opportunities since three semesters ago. Students have been placed all over the world in various countries, such as the USA, France, South Africa, Qatar, Thailand and many others. I am glad to have been chosen to do my internship here at Birmingham City University (BCU).

My main task as an intern at BCU is to manage the University’s social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube and also the blog, Posterous. I am also involved in several office works whenever I need to be, such as contacting other universities for information regarding international students that studied here in BCU. For me, this internship is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as I am able to learn and become accustomed to the culture here, which is so different from back home. I am also able to meet new people, see new places and benefit from everything that Birmingham has to offer.

I think that the partnership between BCU and UiTM is an excellent venture as it provides a platform for students from both universities to share and contribute positively to each other, apart from giving international students such as myself the opportunity to experience working in different countries. I am confident that my experience and the skills that I acquire here will be advantageous to my working life. It’s a very rare chance for me and I’m planning to make use of this opportunity to its fullest.

Laila Abu Hassan

Final Year Student,

Mass Communication Advertising

UiTM Malaysia

Just to remind you, we are still looking for your help to improve library services.

We’ve set up a website to get your thoughts on some ideas – go to http://bcu.vocaleyes.org.uk/introduction/ to register.

This is your opportunity to help us improve the services you use – we want to hear from you!

Janice Bell

Deputy Director of Library and Learning Resources

My Experience at Birmingham City University

My name is Sihlangu Tshuma. I am studying Media and Communication in the School of Media at Birmingham City University. My country of origin is Zimbabwe. I started my degree in 2008 and currently doing my final project and dissertation in Web and New Media. 

My experience at BCU has been dominated by pleasant surprises. The reason being that I had previously attended a tertiary institute in my country. Probably the most surprising aspect of my time at the BCU, is the amount of resources at the disposal of each student. It is easy to appreciate the disparity in resources between my home college and the BCU. You find it hard to sympathise with your fellow British students when they whinge about certain facilities. The library for instance is resourced with a high student-book ratio. 

One of my most profound experiences has been my relationship with the staff. The lectures have been helpful throughout the course. I found them approachable. I have been able to go to them most times, especially in the course of writing an assignment. They have guided me through most assessments and have gone on to do reasonably well. 

Although I found some of the aspects of culture a challenge, I nevertheless relished the experiences. It is important for one to have a positive outlook to the ways of life of other people. Although I still raise my hand in class before I speak, I have been able to assimilate some of the aspects of the local culture. This however does not suggest that you have to change the way you are. I have maintained my identity as an African and the students and staff alike have appreciated that.

-Sihlangu Tshuma

I’m not a Brum (Birmingham) native, but I live in a nearby town called Tamworth. It’s only 15 minutes on the train and I've spend many years travelling into Birmingham for work, rest, and play. This post is mainly about my own personal experiences of Birmingham and what I get out of the city. There's a hell of a lot of other sides to the city, but this will focus mainly on the side of the city that I get the most from (and a bonus selection of recently taken photos by me).

Birmingham often gets a reputation as being a lacklustre location when compared to London, Manchester, or other large city destinations, but these opinions are often conjured up from old views of Birmingham’s industrial past. The city is undergoing a large number of renovations and I'm still surprised every time I go into the city centre   

Birmingham has a thriving shopping centre, boasting the new Bullring centre, which is a maze of shops you can happily spend your time in retail therapy. There’s plenty of little shops hidden around the city that need discovering to really see Birmingham’s hidden worth, such as:

-Candies (for old style sweets)

-Custard Factory (with all sorts of interesting independent shops)

-Wayland’s Forge (Old style board and card games)

-Oasis (Alternative shops for something different)

-Rag Market (Multitudes of stalls selling a bit of everything)

-Frankfurt Market (A seasonal market selling all things German and festive, good food, and drink).

I’m sure locals and visitors could add loads more to this list (I suppose I could go on as well, but it’s hard to make a list of places that everyone would like). Suffice to say that there's plenty of places to spend your money within Birmnigham.

Retail therapy is only one side of the city, I go into Birmingham for the night life as well. Me and my friends are mainly into rock and metal when it comes to music and as such we've a fair few destinations that we head to if we're having a night out. My first stop would be Scruffy Murphy's (affectionately known as Scruffy's), a friendly pub playing the kind of music I like, and serving the kind of drinks I fancy.

After a while in Scruffy's, it's time for a trek across Birmigham to Eddie's nightclub. It's one of those locations that looks rather run-down from the outside, but it's the people that go there and the music they play that makes it such an excellent place to go for an alternative night out. (Other notable night time locations are The Swinging Sporran, The Black Horse, and The Asylum). If you prefer a slightly tamer night out then I suggest you head on over to Broad Street for the tamer clubs and pubs.

It’s safe to say that Birmingham is a cultural melting pot, and you can find a great mix of ethnic, cultural, and social groups within the city. I’ve visited various areas and sampled food and experiences that I’d normally not find so close together in the same city. I hope this post has given you some ideas about visiting new places within the city, or trying an alternative night out. If you're interested in seeing new places within the city, but want something a little closer to your tastes, then it's best to hunt out one of the various societies at the students union. I'm sure they can introduce you to other hidden gems within the cities confines.

I hope this inspires some of you readers to try exploring Birmingham beyond the main shopping areas, and hopefully find your own hidden treasures.

(download)

Click here to download:

my-experiences-of-birmingham-pzvypBmjkncqDJenHrge.zip (42.33 MB)