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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Business School lecture theatre |
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| 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.
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| view from a library window |
I've noticed recently that I haven’t
seen anything with an English flag on it yet. Only the Union Jack. This
surprises me a little because I got into the topic of national identity in one
of my modules in semester 1 and discussed a study which was deducted across the UK and which identified that people from England tend to see
themselves as English first and British second, whereas in Scotland or Wales
for example, people would tend to say that they feel British as a first or main
identity and Scottish or Welsh as a second one.
