Bartek Kolodziej was born in Poland but moved to Germany with his family when he was four.
Here he explains how he came to be studying journalism at Edge Hill College of Higher Education in Lancashire.

It was summer 2001 when I decided to study in England.

Some friends, who were studying in my home city of Hamburg, Germany, told me that the university there wasn't that good.

They complained there were no books, no high-speed Internet connections and that there were lecture rooms filled with 800 students, but only enough seats for 600. Those aren't the kind of conditions I wanted to study in.

I discussed the idea of studying in England with my parents and they were quite enthusiastic about it, because they had been to England many times and had always liked it there.

The problem was that I had no idea about the study system in England. So, for the next two or three days, I locked myself away in my room and surfed all kinds of relevant websites.

I knew I wanted to study something related to media but I did not have a specific course in mind.

Finally, a link took me to the Edge Hill site. A few clicks later the BA Journalism course programme appeared on my screen. It was exactly what I was looking for. The three-year course offered training in all kinds of media, and did not simply focus on newspaper, television or radio journalism.

I e-mailed the programme leader, Tony Turjansky, to get further information and some weeks later, after an interview via telephone, I looked on the UCAS website and to my delight saw "Edge Hill: Unconditional Offer"!

A friend of my father helped me to find a flat here and since August 2002 I have been living in Ormskirk, in quite a nice house near the town centre. Everything has gone smoothly and I am really enjoying life in England.

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