USC-Upper
London
Lifelong-and-Worldwide
London-Transplants

Help For Transplants
Arguably the most vibrant and interesting city in the world, London is a wonderful place to live and work. The London 2012 Olympics are just around the corner, and the excitement is growing.

While the club’s volunteers cannot provide you with active assistance in finding jobs, getting a work visa or arranging the logistics of a move to the UK, we can offer a host of links to resources for many of these matters. The USC Alumni Club of London is an organization run by volunteers, and one of the best ways to learn more about living in London is to attend one of the club events and network with fellow Trojans.

Work Visas and Eligibility
The most significant consideration for Americans contemplating a move to London, aside from “Where will I get decent Mexican food?”, is work authorization. Many members of our club transferred to the UK with their companies or came to study, however there are a few avenues to obtain authorization to work in the UK. For information about visa schemes and working in the UK, please visit the Home Office’s webpage.

Advice on Moving and Life in London
For advice, questions and queries about life in or moving to England, we recommend checking out:

UK Yankee

American Expats in the UK

Focus This site requires a subscription, but offers personal and professional expertise on a range of services to help expatriates live and work successfully in the UK

American Girl in Chelsea written by a Trojan alumnae, this blog is a chic guide for American women who have relocated to London.

Studying in the UK

There are several benefits to studying for a higher degree in the UK:

· Individuals on student visas can live and work in the UK, so you can work while going to school (check with Home Office as some visa rules are changing)

· Upon graduation, you may qualify for the Post-Study visa program, which will allow you to stay on and work in the UK.

· British master’s degrees are, in most cases, only one year in length

· You will have access to the University’s career centre, which will have options of employment not open to members of the general public.

· When you graduate, you will have your pick of top London jobs and a higher degree in the process. Subsequently, you may be able to work anywhere in Europe with relative ease.

· Many schools and programs do not require the same standardized tests as the US (i.e. GRE, GMAT, MCAT); they just want your transcript, application, essay, résumé (CV) and two letters of recommendation.

Enquiries about courses and applications for admission should be made direct to the appropriate Colleges and Institutes. Among a few of the larger and more comprehensive of the University’s Colleges and Institutes:

The University of LondonBritain’s largest university with 90,000 students on over five dozen campuses throughout London and its suburban counties — is a federation of over fifty Colleges and Institutes which together provide an unparalleled choice of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes (both full and part-time), continuing professional development and advanced research.

Goldsmiths College is located in South-East London and is the top creative arts college in the UK, with graduate majors including Media and Communications.

King’s College London (KCL) is located in South-West London and is one of the largest Colleges of the University with over 17,000 students. KCL offers over 200 master’s degrees.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is among the top schools of business and social sciences in the world, offering over 100 graduate majors in a very wide variety of fields. Its alumni include 28 heads of state and over 60% of the LSE’s graduate student body are from overseas. The LSE and the USC Annenberg School for Communication offer a joint master’s degree in Global Media and Communication.

Royal Holloway is located in Surrey, the suburban county immediately south-east of London, and offers a comprehensive range of graduate disciplines. Royal Holloway is considered to have one of the most beautiful campuses in all of Europe and is only 15 minutes from Central London.

University College London (UCL) is located in Central London and is the largest College of the University with around 17,300 students. UCL is consistenty ranked among the top three multi-faculty universities in Britain, having produced 18 Nobel Prizes, and offers over 190 master’s degrees. About a third of UCL’s student body are from overseas, including over 600 Americans every year.

London Business School is consistently ranked as one of the top business schools in the world. The faculty are recognised as authorities in their field by practitioners and by other academics and the students come from over 130 countries. London Business School offers a range of programs including a full-time MBA, Executive MBA, Masters in Finance, and several other highly rated degree programs.
These institutions all offer from 100 to over 200 master’s degrees (practically all only one year in length) and you can request a prospectus for each school be sent to you directly from their websites. If you apply to any of the colleges or schools of the University of London, you usually get a response within six weeks and, upon acceptance, you get all the paperwork for a UK visa. Again, British law allows those on student visas to live and work in the UK, and a British master’s degree is, in most cases, one year in length