A medical student who quit her degree in the UK to study in the Caribbean has said she relishes the slower pace of her new life, where she now gets to spend her spare time at the beach.
Tamara Leslie, 20, was one week into her biomedical science undergraduate degree at the University of Sussex when she began looking for a cheaper way to gain her qualification, and do it in less time, too.
The newly opened New Anglia University, which has its campus in Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory east of the British Virgin Islands, had the perfect course, which condensed her pre-medical degree into one year and her medical degree into four.
Her initial pre-medical degree at Sussex would have taken three years, followed by another five years studying medicine.
She catches Anguilla’s sunsets as often as possible (Photo: Supplied)“I submitted my application to the university and got accepted on the same day,” she told The i Paper. “I dropped my course in the UK and moved here in January. I was ready for it. I knew it would either be a smart or stupid idea.”
Leslie, whose father is geriatrician at an NHS hospital in East Sussex, lived between Papua New Guinea and the UK as a child, and spent the last three years living in Eastbourne.
Because she is an international student, she would have paid £16,000 a year for her tuition alone.
While her parents were happy to help pay for her education, she became determined to find a way to qualify more quickly.
“It is a British university, so they offer clinical rotations in the UK, and they teach according to General Medical Council (GMC) requirements,” she said. “I could study and be recognised to work in the UK.” It’s also significantly cheaper, ranging from just under £7,000 to just over £12,000 a year in fees, depending on the year.
Tamara Leslie’s course is recognised by the GMC and she will be qualified to work in the UK (Photo: Supplied)Leslie said she now has a dramatically different quality of life. Outside her lectures, from 8am to 3pm, she spends her spare time at the beach. The island has a population of only 15,000, so “every beach is like a private beach”, she said.
“As soon as I get the time, I got to the pier or beach, especially at sunset,” she said. “I’ll take a book to read or go for a swim. I might go snorkelling. In the afternoons, I’ll go for walks with my roommates. I like to go to the vet when I have time to spare to walk dogs who are kept in confinement for extended periods.”
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Her living arrangements are cheaper, too. In Sussex the cheapest room she could find was £492 a month. In Aguilla she pays $500 (£372) a month to live in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house. “My room is huge,” she said. “My bed is king size. In Sussex, I’d be in a tiny, squeezed place.”
She is still getting used to being on island time, where the pace of life is generally slower. “It took me three months to open a bank account,” she said. “But people are working to live, not the other way around, like in the UK.”
The change of pace has also changed her outlook on working in the NHS like her father. “If I were to go back to work in the NHS now, it would be quite overwhelming,” she said. “When you’re short-staffed, you’re doing the work of up to five people. It’s not fair when you’re getting paid to only do the work of one person.
Lunch at Jelly BBQ is a 30-second walk (Photo: Supplied)“The people that get the most stress and pressure are the people on the front line, but they’re doing the best they can. It’s a problem with the system,” she added. “If I’m not in a suitable work environment, it’s going to drain my love for what I do.”
The one downside is the high cost of living. Her first food shop cost around $100 (£74) for just 15 items, and she paid $90 (£66) in shipping costs when she ordered some items online.
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“Everything has to be imported,” she said. “So the cost of living is quite high — higher than in the UK. It’s a high-end tourism island, so a lot of the prices are higher than you’d find elsewhere.”
When it came time to buying a car — there is not much public transportation on the island – the cheapest used car she could find was $3,500 (£2,600). “But it was more financially smart to buy a car than getting a taxi everywhere or renting a car,” she said.
Luckily most of the activities she likes to do in her spare time are free. “I try my best to have fun without spending money. I love nature, and I don’t have to pay money to do any of that.”
And she has not failed to make friends, either. “Anguillans are so kind and outgoing,” she said. “If people see you aren’t from here, they are curious about you. I’ve met people at church, walking to the store, and even getting gas for my car. It’s common courtesy for everyone to say ‘good morning’ or ‘good afternoon’ so I’m always interacting with new people.”
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