UNIAID

UNIAID is a charity dedicated to helping young people overcome financial hurdles to higher education. All About U is an interactive, innovative, online, student finance learning game for 16-19 year-old prospective students to help them face, survive and master the financial challenge of university life. All About U is supported by HSBC Bank plc and the Learning & Skills Council.

Epic has created a personal and interactive micro-world that applies game and decision-making theories to an e-learning context. It will provide potential students with opportunities to explore and face some of the real world difficulties likely to arise in the future and help arm them with the confidence, experience and knowledge required to succeed at university, without the burden of financial instability.

All About U takes prospective students through five sequences: vision, choosing, arriving, living, graduating. Every individual follows their own path. Just as in real life, some decisions taken will be irrevocable, and others not. The result is a survival guide to the challenges of student finance.

Players are required to formulate judgments and make a series of inter-related decisions, in order to strike a balance between their time, money, academic goals and social lives. If players continue to perform badly, the consequences could be severe; they might get kicked out of university, burn-out on stress or partying (perhaps both), or even have their account closed by the bank. Players who learn to be more savvy will apply their knowledge of the financial facts of student life, they will have significantly improved their decision-making skills and will as a rule of thumb, always plan ahead.

www.allaboutu.org.uk