Poised to graduate, eyes on London

I'm finishing up my final terms at my University (U of O, in Eugene, Oregon) and am realizing I need to seriously start looking at life options. I am (or will be) a theatre arts major with a minor in business and would like to move somewhere with job opportunities in theatre and fashion. I've been costuming for the stage for 2 and a half years now, have participated in 2 (local and low key) runway shows, and will be finishing my final term of school studying abroad in London, focusing on fashion history and costuming. Hopefully, I'll also be landing an internship in theatre or the garment industry to gain more experience as well as act a means of networking.

As I've been scouring the internet in an unguided and clumsy manner I thought I'd give a s/o to you lovely folks to see if anyone could point me in the right direction, offer personal insight, recommend theatres looking for interns/employees/swing-shift-man-slaves, or brands looking for cutter-sewers or designers. Unlikely I know, but anything helps.

It's from my understaing (info I gathered here even) that in order for me to get a work visa (tier 4 or what have you) I'll need to return to the US and re-apply since I'll be over on a student visa April-June.

Also: In my information gathering I found the  newcomer link: http://www.1stcontactkickstart.com [nonactive] . Has anyone heard of this? Used it? It sounds almost too good to be true: for 35£ you get a UK bank account, UK cell SIM card, job finding assistance, and free international money transfer. Has anyone seen this?

I've never heard of that service, but that doesn't mean it isn't legit. 

Because I've been in London 6 months of each year for the past couple of years I needed all of those things... I opened a free bank account with Barclays, got a cheap pay as you go phone from Vodaphone, and used RationalFX for international money tranfer.  Has worked well for me.

Can't say about the other things... my immigration attorney said that a temporary visa (Tier 3, 4 or 5) can't be exchanged for another visa without returning to the USA.

You are unlikely to find a job willing to sponsor you for a T2 work visa right out of university. As a recent grad, you can apply for BUNAC, which would allow you to do a 6 month internship in the UK. You will likely have to leave the UK at the end of that, however, unless you decide to go to graduate school in the UK or meet and marry a UKC or EU citizen partner.

Firstly, welcome to the board. Sounds like you are about to enter one of the most exciting stages of your life.

Knowing nothing about fashion other than the fact, even as a male, I am a bit of a fashion Wh**e maybe you could attempt to intern with a large fashion house based in America that has offices in London. Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein come to mind. In that particular industry I would imagine a sponsored visa would be hard to come by given how many people are dying to break into it (as if I need to tell you). I know this is a tired saying but I am a firm believer in "Where there is a will there is a way."

Make the most out of your time in London. Enjoy all it has to offer and as far as future prospects of making the UK your home perhaps some thinking outside of the box will work for you.

Best of luck to you!

Thank you all for the kind words and encouragement! I've contacted Kickstart and it sounds like they may be able to set up the phone, bank account business but as for a visa it looks like 6 month internship or work study visas are all I'll be able to get unless I can find someone willing to sponsor me.

Thanks again, very glad to have joined the community 

That service seems like it's taking your money to do things you could do all by yourself.  I don't see why you'd do it, but to each his own.

I'm finishing up my final terms at my University (U of O, in Eugene, Oregon) and am realizing I need to seriously start looking at life options. I am (or will be) a theatre arts major with a minor in business and would like to move somewhere with job opportunities in theatre and fashion. I've been costuming for the stage for 2 and a half years now, have participated in 2 (local and low key) runway shows, and will be finishing my final term of school studying abroad in London, focusing on fashion history and costuming. Hopefully, I'll also be landing an internship in theatre or the garment industry to gain more experience as well as act a means of networking.

I think you'll be better off persuing fashion/costuming in the US and wait and see if any of your work leads you to the UK. To be honest, jobs in costuming are almost nonexistant and although there are more jobs in fashion, the reality is that there are UK and EU citizens competing for those. My SIL and BILs all work in design, and the way the job market is now the only way to get a job abroad is to have a lot of experience - and even then, those jobs aren't always as amazing and desirable as you imagine them to be.

Best of luck in persuing an internship in London, be very proactive about it from day one and don't expect to be handed anything - you'll likely be disappointed.

That service seems like it's taking your money to do things you could do all by yourself.  I don't see why you'd do it, but to each his own.

Yeah, personally, I wouldn't pay for that service... because you can do all of it yourself for free or for much less than £35:

- You can set up a bank account for free,
- you can get a SIM card either for free when you buy a UK phone, or for just £5 or £10 on its own,
- you can do free/nominal charge money transfers through PayPal or XE Trade,
- I'm not sure how they would be able to help you find a job any better than you just searching online yourself or joining an agency.

They also charge £30 to help you apply for an NI number in the UK, which you can do for free yourself anyway (and is really straightforward)!

Wow, they even charge £590 to help you apply for a fiance visa and £700 to apply for an unmarried partner visa - which is weird because the application fee for both of those visas is £810... so presumably then you're just paying them up to £700 to tell you whether or not you can apply for a visa (which you can work out yourself for free by looking at the visa application form), before you even pay for the visa itself!

Ah!

Thank you ksand24, the research I've been doing so far has yielded little results to the costs of applying for a visa. After more searching it seems the Kickstart package really isn't something I would benefit from all that much, as contacting places directly is going to be much more direct and helpful for the type of work I want to do.

However, I have found out that I will be getting a tier 4 visa with the help of the study aboard agency I'm going through (AHA) so I will have a visa good for 6 months of work.

Again, I want to thank you all for being so helpful!

Ah!

Thank you ksand24, the research I've been doing so far has yielded little results to the costs of applying for a visa.

Have you been looking on the UKBA website at all? That is the official government website for applying for visas for the UK - it has all the information about how to apply, what each visa costs, what documents are required to apply for the visa etc.

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/

A complete list of current visa fees are here: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/aboutus/fees-table-spring-2011.pdf

If you will only be coming to the UK to study from April until June (less than 6 months), then you don't actually need to apply for a visa, as long as you aren't planning to work in the UK while you are here - you can just be stamped into the UK as a student visitor when you arrive at the airport (as long as you have all the evidence required to show you will be studying in the UK - http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/visas-immigration/visiting/student/).

However, if you do wish to be able to work while you are studying, then you will need to apply for a Tier 4 visa in advance. The Tier 4 visa costs £255 (although fees are likely to increase in April). In order to apply for the Tier 4 visa, you need a certificate of sponsorship from the university you will be studying at as well as the required evidence for the visa application (http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/visas-immigration/studying/adult-students/).

I'm assuming that AHA will be helping you to gather the paperwork and everything for the visa and your trip though.

After more searching it seems the Kickstart package really isn't something I would benefit from all that much, as contacting places directly is going to be much more direct and helpful for the type of work I want to do.

Yeah, to be honest, it looks like they are just trying to make a bit of money from something that wouldn't cost you anywhere near as much just to do yourself.

Concerning Fashion internships/work experience in London:

Provided you do have a Tier 4 visa, you will be able to take advantage of some placements provided that they are no more than 20 hours per week.

The University of the Arts London has a website with listings of arts jobs and internships. It's been about two years since I was using the site, but it seemed the majority of the listings catered to fashion-oriented students. These are quite competitive and may give preference to UAL students, but it's worth looking into:
http://www.arts.ac.uk/careers/creativeopportunities/

Good luck!