Visas

Okay. I think I might finally have this figured out, after weeks of flailing desperately around.

The deal with the post-study work visa is, you can't have one until you've completed your course and gotten your official results. In my case, I will probably get them sometime around October or November. You also need to have had 800 pounds or more in your bank account for the past three months, and you have to apply within a year of finishing the course. This is, however, if you're applying from within the UK. If I were to finish the course, go back to the States, and try to apply from there, I would need to have had 2800 pounds in my bank account for the past three months. Leaving aside the fact that I don't want to go back to the States because I live here now, I don't have an extra $5,000 sitting around to leave in a bank account for three months, so I need to apply from within the UK. But, I need to be able to work to support myself, obviously, between when I finish in September and get kicked out of the dorms, and when I finally get the work visa in December.

The International Support people at the university say that once I finish the course I should be able to get my work provision changed so I can work fulltime until my student visa runs out, which is in January. I can't fill a permanent full-time vacancy, and I think this translates to "you must work a shitty temp job," but it means I can afford to stay here, which means I can afford to apply for the work visa. It's not an ideal situation, and everyone I have griped to in the past few weeks agrees that it's kind of on the ridiculous side, but I'm willing to put up with a slightly humiliating job for a few months if it means I get to stay here.

I probably shouldn't waitress, though.