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Saido Berahino: The Refugee Lighting Up English Football

Saido Berahino. You may not have heard the name before, but chances are you will soon. The 20-year-old attacker is lighting up English football at the moment with his eye for goal and an equally inspiring backstory. The former refugee from Burundi has had quite a month, scoring on his debut for the England Under-21 team before scoring the winning goal against Manchester United this weekend.

Born in Burundi, Berahino was forced to flee his war-torn homeland a decade ago when he was just 10-years-old. The story goes that his mother was already living in England after being granted political asylum, so he travelled to Heathrow on his own once she had saved enough money to pay for the flight. The family settled in an inner city area of Birmingham and young Saido started playing football.

After just a year in England, he was spotted by Premier League team West Bromwich Albion whilst he was playing for his local side Phoenix United. He joined the club at Under-12s level and started to make his way through the ranks.

The young striker signed his first professional contract in the summer of 2011, before being sent out on loan to various lower league clubs including Northampton Town, Brentford and Peterborough United.

Seven Mistakes to Avoid During Freshers’ Week

ForeignStudents.com editor Andy is not too long out of university and can (vaguely) remember his own Freshers' Week. He's brought together the seven deadly mistakes everyone makes during Freshers' Week so you don't have to (including the old tin foil room above).

1) Going too big, too early

For most people Freshers' Week is seven straight nights of drinking until the early hours. Your first week at university doesn't come round too often, so that's ok - going out is a large part of the process of making new friends. Getting so smashed on the first night that you a) embarrass yourself b) can't remember who your new friends are c) can't make it out for the next few nights, isn't the perfect start.

2) Not eating

With the constant socialising, food can often be forgotten about. A recent survey claimed that more than three quarters of students don't know how to boil an egg and 57% can't cook vegetables (supposedly). Despite your 18-year-old body being able to cope with almost anything you throw at it, it will soon wilt if you don't eat. Eating is not cheating, and however much you try and persuade yourself, Guinness does not count as one of your five-a-day.

Experiencing An Olympic Event

With London 2012 underway, ForeignStudents.com Editor Andy describes his experience of one of the events live.

After applying for dozens of tickets for the London 2012 Olympics earlier this year, I got a grand total of two. They were for boxing at the ExCel Centre, and the big day finally came around yesterday.

With all the warnings of packed tubes and gridlocked streets, we were preparing for the worst. However, the trains all ran perfectly and we even got to pretend we were drivingone of them (as you should always do on the driverless DLR line- pictured below). Everything ran so smoothly that we even had time for a couple of pre-event pints after we arrived at ExCel an hour and a half early.

A British Tradition: The Beer Festival

On a wet Saturday afternoon this weekend I caught the train out of London, away from the traffic and bustle of the city. My destination was the annual beer festival at a small country village called Penn Street. I grew up nearby, but I'd never been to the festival before, and so decided what better way to spend a weekend than drinking fine beers.

Beer is one of the great British drinks, and beer festivals are one of the great British traditions. There are hundreds of breweries up and down the country, each proud of their particular beer. At a festival, you can forget the watery, fizzy lagers of bars, and instead indulge in ales, bitters and porters.

Changes to Student Visas Damaging & Poorly Communicated

In the first of a new series exploring the radical changes the British higher education system is undergoing, ForeignStudents.com Editor Andy looks at how new student visa restrictions are affecting international students.

Last year Theresa May announced that 260,000 fewer student visas will be given out over the next five years, through harsher restrictions on fake colleges and bogus students. Whilst it is clear that preventing fake students from illegally gaining visas is a positive thing, I believe the problem has been hugely overblown, and the solution poorly managed and badly miscommunicated.

Misuse of Figures

The basic problem here is that headline grabbing statistics have been used to the advantage of the government in order to impress British voters, whilst the very same figures have had the exact opposite impact on prospective international students. The headline figure of 260,000 fewer visas sounds like a high number and makes the government appear to be taking action. However, to prospective students abroad, the figure inevitably makes Britain appear less welcoming.

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