VII

Hej everyone! Time for some new anecdotes from Stockholm!

Last week I had my first exam here in Sweden; The Swedish course level 1 exam. The exam was pretty long considering the fact that there were only 6 real lectures. It consisted of 12 assignments which all had 10 to 20 small assignments. I think it went well enough to pass it! However, I don´t really have the feeling that I´ve learned that much, so I´ll probably also take course in level 2. Of course I would be deeply ashamed if I can´t speak fluent Swedish when I leave here!

Tinto!

Fans, readers, followers, another update from Madrid! Again packed full of adventures, so start reading …

On Monday I have my usual classes, which are often too early to give yourself the feeling that you are actually learning something. It are the most interesting subjects of the five, so I try to be a good student and participate as well as possible. The professor at Strategic Management was as unclear as always, so we did not know what we actually had to study for today’s review test.

College Life

Two weeks later! as promised an update about how my life at college is.

It's coming together, First few days I was completely lost and the only thing I could find the dining hall! But after two weeks I can find my way around quite easily.

Classes.

Because I take the two long distance courses, I only take three courses here! They have some courses they do not teach at Tilburg University, So thats cool!. I take Organisational theory, which is a follow-up of organisational behavior. I liked organisation behavior, so I thought this would be intresting, Furthermore, I take managing non-profit organisation, which I like because of the fact that non-profit organisations are not often discussed in IBA. Finally, I also take an economics course, which is in combination economics and law. Thats completely new.

But there are several other courses that are also intresting at TCD. The classes work pretty much the same however, they have a lot more focus on assignments and a lot less on exams. especially if you're here for the first term!

Rugby

I really wanted to try a new sport, so as mentioned in my last blog I chose to do rugby!

I now had three practises, because of a party tonight I am skipping the fourth, but that should be allowed. I am not playing games anyways. I am however joining as a supporter to the match on sunday! would be a nice trip as well as a nice way to get to know the girls better.

The Friendship Program

During the first week here in Turku I was informed about the Friendship Program. Through this program you can get in contact with Finnish people. I decided to sign up for the program to see more of the Finnish culture. Of course there are enough Finnish students here, but I would like to meet “normal” Finnish people to see what “normal” (not student) life is like here in Finland. A couple of weeks ago I met my “Finnish friend”. It turned out that it was a whole family. Mom, dad and two children of 10 and 9 years old. It was a very nice first meeting and we talked about all kinds of stuff. We decided to meet again and that was last Friday. I took my bike and rode to their house located in a small village to the west of Turku. 

Það besta sem Guð hefur skapad er nýr ðagur

As this exchange semester is something so totally different from anything I ever experienced in my life, I choose to see it as a new start. I took the opportunity to put some good intentions in place, as probably more people will have done; I bought a cheap second-hand guitar to pick up my guitar play again and promised myself to go exercising as I used to do quite some time ago. (Actually; way too long ago...)

Exams in Argentina

Horrible: Exams are coming up. What to expect? Such a different country, such a different style of classes, so how are those exams going to be? No idea..just learn and see..
and yes I found out. Its different, waaaaaaaay different.
In Tilburg the university tries to repeat as often as possible we learn to prove everything scientifically, here you just print every word in your head: learn everything by hart and you will succeed. If not, you doomed.

politica de producto: write everything down you know from topic 2. can be 2 or more pages long..what to do? write everything down you can remember, but don't mix the topics!
liderazgo: same
recursos humanos: learn 12 chapters, over 250 pages, and know the smallest details.

this is not all, the most cultural shock point on making exams is the following:
you enter the class room and wait until the teacher starts talking. he divides the class in different themes and everyone tears a paper out of his notebook. What? Jep, you need to provide your own paper and write down the question the professor tells you to answer. So if someone asks if the exams are different, yes!


Relaxing weekend in Rosario; beach + skydiving!

Trip! Santiago de Chile-Mendoza-Cordoba

How amazing is studying abroad: INDESCRIBABLE!

Attending courses, meeting interesting international people, partying and especially traveling!

I went with 4 friends on a 10-days trip: Santiago de Chile, Mendoza and Cordoba.
Summarized: Santiago de Chile, a nice, clean city with a lot of history. Mendoza THE wine district with uncountable vineyards (bodegas). Cordoba, the second biggest city of Argentina/the student city, where springbreak 2011 took place!

Uni a la south-america

Bien dia!

In the former blog I told you something about my university in general, in this blog I will tell you about my courses and all the differences I experience. The classes are 3 hours or 5 hours long, depending on the course. You really need a longer concentration curve here, because they only have 1 break for both. The 45 minutes in Tilburg don't sound that bad right now, right?;). Though, I really enjoy my courses here! They are really interesting and taught in such a different way!

Slides: too modern
Red line: not necessary
Books: as many as possible
Activity in class: as much as possible
So: different!

Travelling and studying

In my previous blog I wrote about the benefits which Norway offers. One of these are the surroundings and during the last couple of weeks I enjoyed it as much as I could. I spent a lot of days in the mountains, were I watched magnificent landscapes and beautiful nature. Sometimes we went for a hike to one of the mountains around Bergen, but I also participated in several weekend trips with other international students. Since the distances in Norway are large and the timetables of the public transport are quite irregular (especially in small villages), organizing a trip isn’t as easy as I thought. Almost all cities in Norway are located along the west coast, next to the sea. But in the middle of the country are a lot of interesting places, which offer glaciers, waterfalls, fjords and other beautiful environment. The best option is to hire a car for a couple of days, book a cabin on a camping and tour around the country. So this is what we did! 

Life in Athens

Dear Bloggers and readers,

I've been in Greece for 3 weeks now and it's amazing. To be honest, today is the first day I actually went to the university and the rest of the days was just "Erasmus life".

It's not that I didn't want to go to the university, which is really close to my apartment, but is had been occupied by protesting students for the last whole month and therefore we were not allowed to get in. Studying in Athens university is totally for free because it's a public school. Even the meals in the cafeteria are for free. Now the government wants the students to start paying a little amount of money and that's why they are striking. There are also protests and riots almost every day and at least one's or twice a week there's public transport and/or a taxi strike. That makes life a little harder because without public transport or a cab we cannot go anywhere and the streets are not really safe during a riot. Then I just have to stay home and listen to the sirens of police cars all day long. 

I feel home

Hello blog readers,

More and more I get the feeling that Madrid is my home now. My Spanish get better and better and we met some Spanish friends from Carlos III. Also I already used the Spanish Marktplaats which is called Segundomano.es.

Monday and Tuesday we had classes. More and more I see the advantages of this school system. Since we have to do homework and really discuss this exercises, and we also have review tests I guess that I will have a real Christmas holiday instead of Christmas-preparing-weeks-for-the-exams which I normally have in Tilburg. Also it is really easy to prepare these review test since they are about just three weeks of lectures so the exams will be more relax when you know that 40 % of your grade is about an 8.

VI

Now that I´ve started my second course here I´m getting the feeling that, as opposed to the stories I had heard from students that already went on exchanges, the courses at Stockholm University have a higher difficulty level than I´m used to. I´d heard a lot of stories about courses being a lot easier in other countries compared to the Netherlands, but I must admit I haven´t noticed that! The 2 courses I´ve followed until now (Real estate management and now History of the welfare state) are pretty die-hard! Maybe it is because you do not follow different courses simultaneously, but nevertheless the level is pretty high. History of the welfare state is actually the first real course for me, since I dropped Real estate management (see an older blog entry). The course basically consists of 6 lectures in total, and a lot of home reading. We’re talking about approximately 1200 pages of material here, so that’s not too shabby! Each lecture consists of a presentation by the professor, and 2 presentations by students, followed by a discussion. It is a very interactive way of learning and you really get involved with the subject. With 12 people it’s also a really small group, which is also nice. 

Dear Green Place aka Glasgow

Hi everyone!

You're about to read my first blog! I will start introducing myself. I'm Michelle Rewinkel, 20 years old and third year student International Business Administration. This semester I'm studying at the University of Strathclyde Business School Glasgow.

First amazing month in Lisbon

Already a month in Lisbon, unbelievable. My new courses are interesting, I went surfing, saw Benfica-Manchester United, and went to algarve. The whole month was amazing. I want to give you an impression of my erasmuslife in the first month.

University:

According to me, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa is a good university. The courses are really interactive, every week we discuss cases and have scientific roundtables. This is totally different from Tilburg University, but very good for my English and participatian. The courses are mandatory and we have never classes with more than 40 students. In every class there are as much Portuguese as international students. I like the principles during group work. Every time we have to mix international and Portuguese students.