I like to move it, move it! ♫ ♪

It’s official! :D I will be moving to another house in January, right after I come back from Germany. It’s just a different area of the city and it’s very close to where I live now, but it’s nicer and the rent is a bit cheaper.
At the moment I still live in Byker. The area is alright I guess, in my view it’s not as bad as everyone here says it is. But comparing it to Heaton nearby, you can already see a huge difference just from the general appearance of the area. And Heaton is where I will move in January.

Byker (the street I live in now)

Heaton (the street I will move to)

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.

UK vs. Germany - first impressions

Getting settled over here, I noticed quite a few things already that are different here from how they are in Germany. For some of them I prefer how they are here, but even now I already miss a few things from home.

There is for example the quality of houses, or rather the quality of the materials houses are made of and how well these are put together. (English houses could use some quality “German engineering” :P ) The house I live in now, for example, has extremely thin walls and floors. I can hear every step anyone takes anywhere in the house. Having two levels in the apartment doesn’t help either. Even though there is thick carpet on the stairs and on the corridor of the upper level, it’s still noisy every time someone goes up or down the stairs. I feel a little bad for the couple living in the downstairs bedroom, it must be even louder there. :/ But then again, I’m glad I’m in one of the upstairs rooms.

But the most important difference is the tap water. Since Hamburg has excellent tap water quality, I grew up and lived all my life almost exclusively drinking tap water. Here that’s just not possible because there’s too much chlorine in it. My solution so far: using a filter and buying bottled water. Filtering tap water twice or three times seems to make it acceptable to drink, but it’s still not very tasty. Plus I’m not convinced that it’s the healthiest solution. Bottled water tastes better but creates extra costs and is heavy to carry home from the supermarket. We’ll have to see which one is the better solution for me.

 
 

One thing I really like here is electric showers. Both bathrooms here have a tankless water heater, which basically means that we always have hot water in the shower. This is very useful, if not a necessity, seeing as there are 7 people living in one apartment. And since we all pay a fixed price for rent, no extra utilities, we don't have to worry about creating extra costs for everyone if one person takes longer than the other. I especially like this because I was afraid I might end up paying a lot more for heating during the winter due to bad isolation. Luckily this won't be a problem now.

Something that seems to be a very consistent custom over here (I've seen it in Scotland, too) and is also different from usual habits in Germany, is how to behave when using public transportation. More specifically: buses. Here, people form a queue to get onto the bus. They really line up in the order they arrived at the bus stop. If you get to a bus stop and people are standing there already, you always get in line behind the last one... and don’t try to stand around somewhere else and jump the queue! It’s not appreciated at all. When the bus approaches, you briefly stick your arm out to the side and into the street to let the bus driver know that people want to board. I don’t know if this is specific to areas like Newcastle, where so many buses come by one single bus stop that this is necessary, or if it is a general UK thing. It’s just something that sticks out because it’s different from what I was used to in Germany. Also, when getting off the bus, every single person thanks the driver before exiting. Since buses only have one door, which is in the front, everyone comes by the driver anyways.

In general, people seem to be very polite and friendly here. I noticed this the first time when I was at my local supermarket. When I came around a shelf and someone else came from the other side, we were standing in each other’s way. The other person just said “sorry” and walked around. The first time this happened, I was a little confused, because in Germany people would just see that there’s room to walk around, maybe exchange a look and walk on. You’d only say “sorry” if you know that you did something wrong; if there was something to feel bad for. Maybe it was your fault for blocking the way, so the other person couldn’t pass. Not here, though. It’s not a matter of being right or wrong, of faults and errors. It’s just a way of being friendly and polite. And I like it ;)
Another example for friendly people I already met here is a guy from the local gym. Matthias and I showed up there last week to look at the facility and maybe sign up for a membership, but we didn’t know that we showed up just at closing time. We were prepared to go back home and come back the next day, as any German gym staff member would have told us. But this man just told us to wait a minute for him to fetch his keys, so he could unlock the doors again to show us around. We were both surprised and happy that this man was so nice to take these few minutes out of his own time, when he was supposed to be heading out already.

And there is one more thing I have to mention when talking about first impressions and differences between England and Germany. Traffic lights. Basically, traffic lights for pedestrians are completely redundant. They are simply ignored. Just look if there’s a car coming and walk whenever you think it’s safe. Even policemen do it. Since I saw that, I at least don’t have to feel guilty any more crossing the street at a red light myself. A UK student told me “they are only for children. At least that’s what I tell myself.”

But enough for now... I’m sure I will soon notice more differences between German and British customs that I can tell you about.

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!)