Given that I’ve been accepted for the Msc Computer Engineering program at the Abertay University (pursuing my life-long dream of making games, yay), I’m forced to undergo the unpleasant procedure of applying for a UK visa. And by unpleasant, I’m not simply referring to the pages and pages of forms that I have to fill. Neither am I referring to the lengthy Policy Guidelines document (it has 88 pages of just text. No pretty pictures) that I have to keep looking at to decode some of the more arcane parts of the aforementioned forms. No, I’m referring to the sheer indignity of it all.

Despite being accepted to study at a university in the UK that has a long list of accreditations, a university that has been around for several decades, I have to provide proof that I have enough money; not only enough money to fund my studies, but also proof that I have enough money for something the UK border agency calls “Maintenance”, which is supposed to cover the high(?) costs of living in the UK. Scotland itself (where the university is located) has a relatively low cost of living, but the UKBA has arrived at an arbitrary figure of 800 sterling pounds per month as the maintenance amount, and I have to provide proof that I have enough funds to cover living in the UK at the arbitrary per-month cost-of-living figure they have arrived at.

Now, you might be thinking, that’s not so bad. After all, they need proof that I won’t fly all the way there just to turn into a homeless bum. After all, who wouldn’t dream of paying hundreds of dollars for a flight to a strange country just to live on the streets, right? However, what’s worse is that if the amount is in my parents’ account and not in my own, I need to prove that I am legally my parents’ son. And that involves handing my birth certificate over to them.

I can’t help but wonder, who do they think would be depraved enough to go to the trouble of pretending someone else is their legal guardian, ensuring that the someone else has 96000 sterling pounds in the bank account, and they paying to fly to the UK just to end up homeless on the streets of Dundee, Scotland?

I’m paying several years’ worth of savings to move to your country to pay for my education at one of your universities. This money will eventually end up in your pockets, either in the form of taxes paid by the university or by increasing the reputation of your university should I become someone successful someday. Thanks to your new visa policies, if I don’t get a job by the end of my education, I will be forced to come back to my own country.

The least you can do is not make me feel like shit about it.