I am a writer and an undergraduate student in the final year of my degree at Goldsmiths, University of London. I have moved to the UK a week before I have started my course from Hungary and therefore I have not received a Maintenance Loan or Grant. In the first two years of my degree I have worked 30-40 hours a week while also being a full-time student. I have spent 5-6 nights a week working in a restaurant to get by. At the end of this summer, however, the heavy manual labour had its repercussions and the slipped disc I have first developed when I was 13 years old returned, making me almost incapable of walking even within my home. This condition persisted for several weeks, which meant I was forced to quit my job. Since then I have recovered and have found work in a bar, but only on the weekends, which only makes enough money for groceries. I have started working as a freelance web content and copywriter as well, but the unregulated nature of the work means I can never be sure whether I can get work and how much and it also leaves me vulnerable to scams. Over the Christmas period, I have taken up a freelance assignment that I have spent several hours on every single day and have written 18,426 words altogether. On the agreed payment date, however, my employer disappeared and has not been in contact since then, leaving me $737.04 short. This event illustrates how my wellbeing and the success of my studies is being threatened by the fact I am not in the position to support myself with full-time work.
I would like to be able to get the same chance to succeed as someone who lived here for long enough to be eligible for support. I have firsthand experience of the privilege of those who receive government support, as they have substantially more amount of time to devote to their studies, they are able to provide themselves with the basic necessities of the course, such as the copies of the books on the reading list, which have always been out of reach for me.