Dublin

What Dublin? No I'm still studying in Glasgow. Last weekend me and nine other friends decided to visit Dublin. We had to get up at four in the morning to catch our bus to the Airport. Since we took the regional buss on a Friday evening it was packed with drunken Scots, a very interesting experience. From Glasgow to Dublin takes you only 20 minutes by plain. So at 9 in the morning we arrived at our hostel in Dublin. The hostel was very neat and we even got breakfast! First time that ever happened to me. After a good breakfast we explored the city for a bit. First we went to see Trinity college ( where Steven is currently studying ). The University is the exact opposite of Strathclyde. It's very nice and traditional, pretty buildings and all, whereas Strathclyde is really modern. We visited several musea and parks as well. After sightseeing the city, we made our way to the Guinness brewery! If you go to Dublin, make sure you put that on your bucket list! The day after we also visited the Jameson Distillery. It was very different from the Auchentoshan brewery I visited earlier this semester, although it was interesting to observe the differences between the two. That evening we went to Temple Bar to hit some pubs ( but i'm used to doing that in Glasgow!).

The weekend before my girlfriend visited me. That weekend I had my first Haggis. To be honest it wasn't that bad at all! Is tasted like spicy minced beef, with a bit more fat in it compared to Dutch ground beef. It was very cool showing my girlfriend around Glasgow. That Sunday we went to Edinburgh by bus. It is only about 7 pounds from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Even though Edinburgh is only an hour away, it is totally different from Glasgow. It is much more touristic and has more history, compared to Glasgow. The Dublin castle is very cool, because you are able to see it from almost everywhere in the city. We also visited the Scottish national museum, that is very impressive in size!

This is all for today, since I'm off to a Rangers game! I'll make sure to let you guys know how it was next post.

Cheers

The city of Shanghai

Nǐ hǎo!

I would like to welcome you to China and the city of Shanghai! I’m glad to participate in this blog and to share experiences of studying abroad. I hope my input would give you a good view of living and studying in Shanghai! In this first blog I would like to give you an introduction of this metropolis.

First of all, I’m honored for going on exchange to China and to live in Shanghai in particular. Before the application procedure to study abroad began, I had made a shortlist of my preferences where to go. On the top of that list was Shanghai. I was really glad when I found out that students from Tilburg University (TiU) are able to go there. There are several universities in Shanghai such as Fudan University, Tongji University, and Jiaotong University. The first and the third actually have an exchange program with TiU and my preference was to go to Fudan University. One of the main reasons was that it is one of the best universities of China. In fact, I’ve learned from fellow Chinese students that it is really a big thing to study at Fudan.

The university itself covers numerous different schools and these are mainly located in the north of Shanghai. The main campus is huge and it takes at least a half hour to walk from one side to another. Students usually rent a dormitory room at the campus and various facilities are located nearby. One of them is the School of Management, which is an independent school within the university. I’m following courses of the so called International MBA program. I’m living in a compound outside the campus, between the university and the city center.

To give a brief description of my classmates, the students have already obtained their master’s degree, worked for couple of years, and they went back to the university to better themselves even more. They are therefore a couple years older than the normal Dutch master student. It is really interesting to hear stories about their working experience and they have usually worked for big companies, e.g. Citi group, Tsingtao Beer, and Siemens. Moreover, their study backgrounds vary from all types of fields. They are all very interested to meet Western students and it is for me the same the other way around.

This was a short introduction for studying at Fudan University. There is a lot to tell more and I’ll do this in the next blog posts. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me!

See you soon!

Richard

E: r.n.d.s.jacobs@uvt.nl

Education and St Patrick's day

How are all you guys doing? In Ireland everybody is very excited since tomorrow is St Patrick’s day. This is the national celebration day in Ireland and you can compare it maybe a little bit with Queensday. However according to all the stories this should be even better. As some Irish people told me ‘St Patrick’s day is the time to make the tourist think that all their prejudices about Irish people are true’. It is expected that more than 700.000 green people will infiltrate Dublin city center and will drink for the full 24 hours. I hope it is going to be crazy!!!  Luckily we are also free Monday  from our lectures to recover. 

Celtic!

It has been a while since my last post, but I had a fair reason: midterms! But before I started to get some studying done, I went to see a Celtic game. Seeing either a Celtic or Rangers game is definitely a thing you want to put on your bucket list for Glasgow! We started the afternoon by going to a pub along with all other Celtic fans. The atmosphere was absolutely amazing. Before entering the stadium, we bought some Fish & Chips to eat during the match. The first half wasn’t that good, but the second half was much better. Glaswegians take their football pretty serious, and it is very cool to be part of that.

That same week I had to start studying for the first time while I was here. I had two class tests, one for Financial Analysis and one for Treasury Management & International Finance. The teachers have yet to grade the tests, but I will let you guys know how I did in my next blog. The class tests are on average not too bad. And compared to Tilburg I would say it’s a bit easier.

This weekend we explored Glasgow even further. We went to the museum of transportation, which is absolutely a must do as well. It’s free, it’s fun and there are lot of things to see. However from campus it’s a hour walk, but a good way to explore Glasgow! That evening I went out for dinner with a couple of friends to an Indian place. I must say that in restaurants and bars you have to be alert for people trying to rip you off (It’s definitely the exception, not the rule!), because some restaurants tend to do that when they notice you are a foreigner. However when you do pay attention, there should be no problem. After dinner we went to the Nice & Sleazy which is definitely my favorite pub in Glasgow. The atmosphere is great, the drinks are good and they play nice music.

Today I went to St. Andrews with my flat mates and two others. It took us 2.5 hours to get there by bus, but it was totally worth the travel. After missing the sun for two months, it was a pleasant surprise to see the sun shining for a full day in St. Andrews. The weather on the east coast is significantly better than that on the west coast! We visited and old burned out church, which was pretty cool. Thereafter we visited the University of St. Andrews where almost every person of the Royal family studied and of course the golf courses, since St. Andrews is the home of golf. That’s it for now, in two weeks I will be visiting Dublin!