Hannah goes... academia

I think it's about time I tell you a little more about Newcastle University, how things are done here and how that affects my everyday student life.

 

Armstrong Building, photo taken by my friend Chia-Ling

 

First of all, I should tell you a bit about my classes. This semester I’m taking 5 modules, 2 from my main programme (CCC) and 3 from my pathway (IBM). For those of you who haven't read it before or who forgot, CCC stands for Cross-Cultural Communication and IBM/IM for International Business Management.

The most important module I'm taking is Methods of CCC Research. It's the only one I will have across both semesters, because it’s connected to my research portfolio, which will include my final works for the Master's degree. The module consists of one 2hr lecture/seminar (a bit of both really) plus 1hr seminar per week which only started last week, but will continue next semester.

outside the King George VI building

The other module for my main programme is Language & Cross-Cultural Communication, which consists of one 2hr lecture and a 1hr tutorial for discussions.

For my pathway, I’m taking Principles of Marketing, for which I have a 1hr lecture twice a week and a 1hr seminar once a week.

Business School lecture theatre

Business School lecture theatre

Then there is The International Business Environment. This is one 2hr lecture every week, except for 2 weeks within the semester, where we have a 2hr seminar instead.

And finally, I chose Managing Across Cultures, which is the only module I could choose. All the others are compulsory modules. This module includes a 2hr lecture per week (until 2 weeks ago, now I don’t have any more lectures for this module), and also four 2hr seminars throughout the semester, of which we spent 2 seminars watching movies related to the topics and one seminar holding group presentations.

As you can see, not all of the lectures and seminars are held weekly, which also means I do not necessarily have the same schedule every week.

The other thing I would like to mention is the NU grading system. Assignments are marked on a scale from 0-100%. Some of you might think that this is not too differently from grading systems in the US then, right? Wrong! Although it does seem like a similar system at first, it’s a little more complicated here...

First of all, anything below 50% is a fail. However, if you score 40-50, you get the chance to repeat an exam, essay or whatever the assignment might be, but no matter how horrible or excellent this repetition might turn out to be, it will always be marked as 50%. (at least it's better than getting a 0%). Then 50-60% is a pass, 60-70% a merit, and 70-80% is a distinction. 80% and over is very rarely given (none of the CCC professors have ever given anything better than an 85 in their whole careers, and even those were rare exceptions). A piece of work awarded an 80 or above would be considered worth publishing. So in reality, the scale doesn’t go up to 100% but an 80 is almost like a 100 already, and the lecturers told us to not be too disappointed when we get back our first assignment, and to keep that scale in mind.

view from a library window

Winter is coming!

I know it's getting old, but I really can't say "winter is coming" any more without having Ned Stark's voice in my head or at least thinking about Game of Thrones and house Stark in some kind of way. And I bet I'm not the only one ;)

One of the first things I noticed here in Newcastle is that even in October when it started getting really cold, most Geordies would still run around in t-shirts as if it was still summer and maybe put on a jumper now, when I already bring out my winter coat and leather gloves. Just a few days ago on my way home from university my fingers hurt and started getting red and purple from the cold wind because I forgot my gloves and all of a sudden I saw this guy calmly walking by in shorts and flip flops! I mean, seriously? I still see a lot of people running around in shorts, but flip flops? I really don't know how they do that. 

fan heater

Now that it starts getting really cold outside a whole new problem arises. Our heating is rubbish. It’s either boiling hot or ice cold and can only be managed centrally for the entire flat. The only thing we can regulate individually is to turn the heating in our own rooms off or on, which I’m not sure if it really works, because even when having it turned off it still gets fairly warm if it’s on downstairs. Also, it gets warmer downstairs than upstairs, because the desired temperature is adjusted to the current temperature of the downstairs area where the control is at. This means that when it’s warm for us upstairs, it’s already too hot for the people in the downstairs bedroom and when it’s warm for them it’s still way too cold for us upstairs. It also doesn’t seem to be very accurate. Set the temperature to 22°C and the heating upstairs is still ice cold (colder than the room itself). Set it to 25°C, it gets boiling hot and the air will get even drier than it already is. It’s so bad that we finally decided to buy our own fan heater so we can just ignore the house heating and let the other flat mates fight their heating wars without us.

coffee break between lectures

But at home is not the only place where it gets chilly these days. The lecture theatres on campus tend to be air-conditioned a little too well in my view. I really don’t think it creates a good learning environment when students have to sit in the lecture wearing their coats and still freeze their asses of. I know I can only speak for myself here, but I really can’t focus on a lecture when I constantly have to rub my hands to keep them from getting too stiff and cold to hold a pen... Seriously... what is it with air conditions that people have to overuse them so much? I had the same problem during my high school year in the United States. Except there, they used only heating all winter and only air condition all summer, so I had to actually wear winter clothes in summer and summer clothes in winter to be appropriately dressed according to the temperatures inside the school building. Here in Newcastle it doesn’t feel that bad yet, but there are a few rooms where it’s seriously warmer in the hallway right outside the lecture theatre than it is inside. And I don’t like it. :( I already tried asking the lecturer if there was any way to turn the AC down or off, but it seems like that’s regulated automatically from somewhere else. When I complained at the reception, they told me that although that lecture is basically held by the Business School, since I am not a Business School student I would have to tell my student representative about this who then has to talk to the student committee from my department and they then have to send a formal complaint to the Business School, which would then finally look at it. Stupid bureaucracy. Well, I did talk to my student representative today and if I can get more people who feel the same to complain about this as well, then hopefully something can be done to improve learning and teaching conditions. *fingers crossed* Hoping for the best.

Hannah goes... Halloween

♫ ♪ ♫  "This is Halloween, this is Halloween,
Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Halloween!" ♪ ♫ ♪
(taken from Tim Burton's lovely film 'A Nightmare Before Christmas')

You might have guessed it already or know it anyways: I like Halloween. And I like to dress up for Halloween. But I basically like to dress up for any kind of given occasion, so I can't really use that as an excuse.^^ Some of you might know that I specifically like to dress up as Lara Croft. I've done this before and ever since last year's Halloween, I've wanted to try this costume again. Unfortunately I did not have the resources here that I would have had in Germany, and although I always know Halloween is coming and I start thinking about how to dress up about a month in advance.... all of a sudden it's the day of the Halloween party and I didn't prepare anything. >_< It's almost always like this. And I don't really know why. Maybe it's because October is always a busy month. Maybe... maybe not. Anyways.

So this year I pretended to be Lara Croft again. It wasn't close as good as previous Lara costumes I've done and I wanted to do it better this time, but oh well. It was fun anyhow. I even managed to go into a Poundland on the day of the party and get some guns this time. The party itself was a huge disappointment (pumpkin carving and making toilet paper mummies, seriously?) but at least I spent the evening with some really nice people and I'm glad I went out.

I also carved my very first own pumpkin this year. *proud* It was a lot of fun and I really like how it turned out. I even got some spooky candy to go with it :)

Happy belated Halloween everyone! I hope you enjoyed it.