By Goh Yi Han

WHAT struck me when I first arrived in London recently to start university was how everything in this city, more than I ever noticed in Singapore, is coloured by the recession.

London, as a major financial centre in the West, has been hit especially hard.

News reports are obsessed with growth figures and unemployment. Restaurants advertise 'crunch lunch' deals, and sales of cheap, ready-to-eat meals at supermarkets have shot up. It has had a direct impact on many of my newfound British friends, arguably more so than on my peers back home.

Students in London usually pay for university with government grants or student loans which they must repay with interest once they start work. Unlike most young Singaporeans, they do not rely on their parents for financial support.

Many families do not have enough savings to see their children all the way through college anyway, even with the subsidised local fees. This means, unfortunately, that many British graduates start work tens of thousands of pounds in debt. This recession has made the already tight situation even worse for them.

Ironically, they feel the squeeze more than I do, even though as a foreign student I pay higher overseas fees. To subsidise living costs, most of my classmates are scrambling to find part-time work - ever important in oh-so-expensive London.

Despite this, many of my coursemates remain optimistic about their job prospects, believing that the economy will recover by the time they graduate.

They also look forward to opportunities in other 'new' and 'exotic' parts of the world, a point made when we visited a Tastes of Singapore event at Selfridge's department store in Oxford Street. We started talking about kaya toast and orchids, and what living in Singapore might be like for them. One flatmate said he would consider choosing Singapore for his third- year overseas exchange, to learn more about the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, he might potentially even work in Singapore.

It is a little strange to discover, after coming half a world away from home, that people here want to go the other way.

But it is also comforting because it reminds me of this: However my overseas adventures turn out, there will always be something worth heading home for.

The writer, 21, is a first-year law student at King's College London.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.