Hannah goes... Round 2! *ding-ding-ding*

Finally, classes have started for semester 2 and it seems to be more relaxed this time, especially in regards to my timetable. I was, and still am, really excited about going to the classes and I am highly motivated to work hard and do my best for good marks.

As for the modules, this semester I am still taking Methods of CCC Research, which is continued from semester 1 and which is connected to my research portfolio aka dissertation. Just like in semester 1, it consists of a 2hr lecture and a 1hr seminar per week.

For my main programme (CCC) I am also taking Culture, Interculturality and Identity which involves a 3hr lecture per week and three 1hr seminars across the semester.

Some of the books I need for semester 2

I also signed up for International Business Talk and Interaction, which is scheduled for 6 hours on a Saturday (dreadful thought, I know). However, this is restricted to four Saturdays only, therefore I am confident that this will help to spread assignments across the semester, so I won’t have 3 assignments all due in one week again... that was really too much for me at the end of semester 1.

For my pathway (IBM), I’m taking Small Business Marketing and Management this semester, a 2hr lecture, hoping the focus will be more on management than on marketing...

And finally, I have a module called Performance and Decision Management, which is essentially Management Accounting and is a weekly 3hr lecture.

Overall, I am really happy with my programme and my modules and I am really really glad that I got accepted at Newcastle University to experience all this! :D

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.

A tour around 'toon'.

The 4^th week of teaching is already over and I realized I have not written a single word about university, the campus, or anything really, that has happened since teaching started. To be honest, I was so busy trying to get used to my schedule, the classes and student life around here that I didn’t even get to write anything. The first few weeks flew by so fast and there is so much to tell that I don’t even know where to start.

How about starting with the end? ;) My Masters’ thesis aka dissertation. I was very delighted to find out that I will NOT have to produce one single document as a dissertation at the end of my studies. Instead, what I have to prepare for my programme of study is a “research portfolio” which consists of three individual research files which are prepared and handed in at different stages throughout my studies. This makes me a lot more relaxed about the assignment. Since the individual research files are a lot shorter than one dissertation would be, I can work on it a lot better without worrying too much about getting a low mark and therefore a bad degree.

Another thing I really like here is the university staff and how they position themselves in relation to the students. It feels like the student-teacher relationships are much more on a personal level than what I experienced in Germany. Beginning in the first week, for example, one of our lecturers told us to please refer to him as ‘Peter’ rather than ‘Professor’ or ‘Mr S.’. He even said we could come up with other nicknames for him, as long as they are not too insulting.
 

Let's come to the campus. Since my main programme (Cross-Cultural Communication aka CCC) and my specialised pathway (international business management) are each organised by different schools, I have to move around campus a lot. The CCC lectures and seminars, which are managed by the School of Education, Communication and Language Science, take place in the various buildings on main campus, whereas the lectures for the business modules are managed by the Business School, which has its own building a little further off. The Business School is located next to the football stadium of Newcastle and is only a 6-10 minute walk away from the main campus, so luckily it’s not bad at all. The only thing I don't like is that although there are so many bus lines in Newcastle, especially in the city centre, I cannot use a single one to get around campus a little faster. None of them connect the parts of the city I need to get to, so it's always faster to just walk.

 

To give you an overview, here's some visualisation:

Newcastle Upon Tyne City Centre Map

main campus

Business School

As already mentioned above, I have most of my classes on the main campus, and exclusively so in the 3 buildings on the north-west side in that circled area. When looking at the old castle-like buildings of the main campus area, I sometimes feel like I'm in Hogwarts :)

The Monument

China Town

On top of the Grey Monument in the city centre stands Charles Grey (the very one we know today for his Earl Grey tea). The bus I take to get to university every morning goes right by the monument. When I have to go to the main campus, I get off the bus at the monument bus station and have to walk the rest of the way. Only when I have classes in the Business School, I can wait 2 more stops, because the bus passes the Chinese arch, the Business School and the football stadium. The Chinese arch marks the beginning of China Town, which has many Chinese shops, supermarkets and restaurants.

Millenium Bridge

standing on the bridge at night

The Millenium Bridge is a bridge only for pedestrians. It can be tilted to let ships pass through, which uses about as much energy as would be required to boil water in a kettle. At night the bridge glows in beautiful changing rainbow colours.

We went to the Theatre Royal last week to watch Shakespeare's Hamlet. Our German flatmate told us that the Theatre Royal here in Newcastle offers special cheap tickets to get more young people to go to the theatre. So for people aged 16-25 they reserve 25 tickets per show which can be bought by these young people for just £5 instead of the regular price of £25. Too bad I'm 26 already, I had to pay the full price :/ But even for that price it was definitely worth it. It was played by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which seems to perform quite often in London and Newcastle.

The last point on the map I'm going to mention here is the Goose carvery. It's a restaurant near university campus which serves lunch. The special thing about it is that it is comparatively cheap and the quality of the food there is way better than anything else you can get for this price anywhere in the area. Students pay £3,77 for one type of meat of their choice (usually they offer gammon, turkey and pork) or £3,41 for battered fish or meat pie. Two slices of the chosen meat are then cut off the whole piece in front of them and additionally there is an all-you-can-eat vegetable buffet with round about 10 different veggies and potato variations to choose from. This is clearly the first surprisingly positive experience I had here so far concerning food. Other than this, most of the food here, even from supermarkets, is more expensive than it would be in German supermarkets, and this even though very often the quality is worse. But there will be more on food on my facebook page pretty soon. ;)

All this should give you a pretty good overview of 'my Newcastle', or 'toon', as geordies would pronounce 'town'. Just one more little thing for those of you who are bored enough to watch a bus ride from Byker metro to the monument. I filmed this one for fun, just to show you how bumpy such a bus ride can be over here and what it looks like when sitting in the top front of a double-decker bus, which is where I usually sit on my way to university.

Hannah goes… Newcastle

Today I want to tell you how I ended up here in Newcastle Upon Tyne, because I’m sure I didn’t tell everyone (although it seems like many knew that I was “going to England” before I even completed my application o_o ) Anyways, let’s start from the beginning.
As many of you know, I recently finished my undergraduate studies at the University of Hamburg with a Bachelor degree in English and American studies (or simply English language and literature). After my exams were all through, I started looking for a Master programme that would interest me, and at the same time help me get a little bit away from linguistics and literature and a little more in the direction of business management. I checked different universities in Germany and England but just could not find the right one. After my boyfriend got into Newcastle University, I checked their programme list and finally found the perfect one: Cross Cultural Communication and International Business Management. It was an excellent combination of continuing what I had already studied and adding a direction in which I wanted to go. So I decided to apply there as well. Almost three months of anxious waiting and nervous daily e-mail checking followed the application, until I finally got an e-mail in the end of August stating the words I wanted to read!

Woot! But since it was already the end of August and the semester would start in September, there wasn’t much time left to deal with all the official stuff that had to be taken care of...
- Apply for university accommodation.

- Cancel the contract with the landlord for the flat in Hamburg.
- Store everything I wanted to keep in my sister’s basement and attic, as far as space would allow. (Luckily my parents were willing and able to drive by my place several times a week to pick up stuff and drop it off at my sister’s).
- Sell all the furniture I did not store.
- Buy a big suitcase (or rather make it a belated birthday wish)
- Cancel several contracts, such as GEZ, gym membership, internet, etc.
- Apply for financial support from the German government (BAföG)
- Already vote in the upcoming election, since I knew I wouldn’t be around for it

- Order a new ID, so I wouldn’t get in trouble flying back next year with an expired one

- Officially de-register from the address I would soon not have any more
- ...

After everything was settled, I could finally book my flight. By then I already knew that I did not get into university accommodation, but I also knew that I could live with my boyfriend, who left about a week before I did and already found a room.

At least without the trouble of having to look for private accommodation myself, I ended up in this apartment with four bedrooms, three of which have double-size beds. So at the moment, this apartment is housing 7 people. Three couples and one unlucky single. One couple is from Italy, one is from China, and another German will live in the single room. It sure won’t get boring around here. I just hope that we will keep getting along as well as we are now. =)

Registration

Today I went to the university to collect my SmartCard. So now I finally have a valid student ID and can do fun things like getting a metro season ticket, register for a gym or sports club and rent books from the library.

I also checked out the Student Union building today and found these funky chairs. (they were not very comfy, but DAT ASS!)