Examination Time

Exams? - Aaaaaaa!

Since it is examinations time in UCN, I prepared a small video with a girl you already know - Daina Raiskuma. She talks about her experience with the exams in Aalborg and she gives you some little tips. Obviously all of them are about studying or at least paying attention on the lectures. You can also read some other stories from students from different specialisations. I wanted to post it here, so you can have different perspectives, from different eyes - not mine. Of course I can sign myself under every note. The atmosphere at the exams is really nice, and our teachers will help you to get you on the right track.

We are able to use our computers in the classes, but some of the people just stare at facebook or chat on skype. Please, future students - don't do that. Just stay focused all the time on the lectures or stay home and don't come to school. I think this represents a big disregard for the teachers and they might remember it. When you want to pass your exam well, don't just be focused on yourself, show little respect and remember that later on, you can have an exam with the person to whom you showed your attitude.

Waldemar is a good friend of mine and he passed his bachelor exam. I know he holds a  great passion for architecture and construction. He has many drawings in his apartment and he can talk about it very conviencing. We need more people like him in the world - people with passion and love to whatever they are doing. Congratulations Waldus! 

We can all support him to find a great job as an architectural engineer. Comment down below to wish him all the best! :)

Waldemar Kozlowsky, Lithuenia - Architectural Technology and Construction Management (Bachelor Degree) 

"Being and learning how to become architectural technologist, I found two most exciting areas. Main satisfaction area is 3D modeling, second is expressing yourself to engineers, architects in technical language during the meetings. My final exam was by myself and I presented digitally wchich means my drawings and documents were shown via projektor. It was cozy because I knew it will be fair and smooth with 5 teachers, which were like friends to me within 3,5 years. Overall 6 male examinators (1 external) were evaluating me and my project. Presentation lasted 20 minutes, questions were estimated for 10 minutes and 10 minutes of feedback. I was complitely confident at the exam because I made this kind of presentation many times before. Exam was successful and I got proper grade which states I am totally ready  for engineering, architectural, conctruction market."

I know Barbara, since we were living together in Danhostel (you can read about danhostel in a post about accommodation,part1). She finished her AP degree in UCN but then she decided to explore more and move out to Copenhagen. She lives a good life there,but she remembers Aalborg very well.

Barbara Prochownik, Poland - Marketing Management (AP Degree)

"Each semester includes final exams or project examination. 
Basically 1st semester is ending with 4th exams with particularly subjects like Law, Marketing, Economics, Communication and management. 
2nd semester is based on project. At this point  you are working with 5/6 people, on one task (usually is the project for some company). Examination is individual, you are responsible for presentation which is 5min (it has to be connected with project) then you have 10minutes conversation with teachers. 

There are 2 people one from your program and one external. 

3rd semester is pretty the same as 1st but instead of having 4 written exams you have 2 oral and 2 written.
Communication, and sales  are oral . Before exam you get information  what exactly will be on examination. 

On communication exam, you have to prepare small presentation, and after you get 2/3 questions from  teacher (one internal, one external), sales exam is little bit different. Before examination your getting task to prepare and you have 30min for that one, afterwards you are going to have exam with one external one internal teacher.

4th semester is the final one of this program. After internship, your responsible to write by your own, or with other student a project. At the end, you have presentation in front  of your supervisor, and external person. Presentation should be no longer than 8 min, and right after you have 30min conversation. 
You have to know, that those exams  which are described above are different than in other countries. 

Teachers are helpful, atmosphere during exams  is nice, and  you are more confident and more comfortable with presentation and with teachers."

Here you have a promised interview with Daina. I am very sorry if you see her in the second video already, but I think she is perfect for the films I am making. We always have lots of fun with doing everything together and she can talk and talk and talk and talk! Daina made her AP degree in Service and Hospitality Management in january and she decided to go away and start her proffesional career within the industry she has diploma from. I love her very much because she takes care about other people and she would help all the students with the informations they need. You can see this in the video below.

Dainuczka! We all love you here in Aalborg and we are glad we met you, kisses!

Change your settings to HD!

I hope you liked all the stories and you enjoyed reading and watching it. I think it is important to get ready for every exam and show your love to the industry you are studying. Then you can achieve a lot and pass all your exams - obviously seeking the best results possible! Take notes and prepare every time! Feel free and comfortable with yourself and with teachers! 

Thank you for reading

Aleksandra

PS for all the future students from Poland. This week I am in Poland. Tomorrow - in Rzeszów in Podpromie Hall and from thurstday till saturday in Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. For more info - email me:) You can always come and ask many questions:) 

Bye!

Acommodation Part 2

Good Evening and Good Morning!

First of all I am sorry it is just now when I am writing this second part of finding apartment story. Hope you had nice and relaxing weekend though! ;>

I would like to thank you all for sharing the website - my friends, the agents and other readers. I am getting lots of questions which are my inspiration to the next blog post. Keep it on and do not hesitate to write me EMAILS or just COMMENT under!

So continuing with the story about accommodation in Denmark..

As I mentioned in my previous blog post I decided to look for an apartment after summer. 

When I came back from my 4 months internship in Malta to Denmark, I did not have any place to stay. Luckily my friend Anna and her parents offered me to stay with them. (Thank you so much once again!!)

Even though I was living 20 km away from Aalborg - in Kongerslev - I was looking for an apartment every day. It was really hard period of time since I wanted to find something as soon as possible, but as you can imagine - women have special demands.. How did I know where to look? Well, actually I didn't, but my friend told me about one website which offers different houses/ apartments for rent and it work as a forum of searchers and land lords. I bought an account there which costed me around 350 DKK but it was really worth it. If you are going to look for an apartment this is THE WEBSITE. Now I know that UCN ambassadors of acommodation can help you with the account there. 

When I noticed one flat in this portal I thought to myself - this is the one! I called on the number given, and turned out it was agency that is cooperating with Bolig Portal. We scheduled a meeting. I got keys to the apartment in order to look around. I remember when I came there - the apartment did not look like my perfect one! It was all messy, lots of shoes and newspapers on the floor, letters from the banks and old pictures. I thought to myself - OK. Someone was kidnapped here. I came to the other room and I heard it! I heard beautiful noise of cars and people behind the window. I run to the 4th floor window and saw all the small buildings in the center of Aalborg, beautiful Limfjord Bridge and all fashionable people walking down the street.

Lindholm Bryggen at night

I came back to the lady in the agency and I was ready to sign the contract but she told me that I have to wait till they clean everything. I was in such a big rush that I did not agree for that, we had agreement that I will clean everything and I will live in the apartment one week for free. OK - no problem with that:) This is over 1,5 year already when I am living here! :)

When your looking for a flat here you should remember 3 things that I was really surprised about :

1. Emptiness
2. Deposit
3. One room per one person

First thing is the emptiness. I was really surprised that this is so normal here, that every apartment is unfurnished (Besides the kitchen). You come in and what you see, is the white walls and unfurnished flat. Unless you see shoes and newspaper of an ex person who lived there.

Maybe it is quite normal for all of you but when you rent the flat in Poland you have it all inclusive :) That is why it was wow effect for me because I felt like in hospital - white walls an nothing inside. In Poland you pay small deposit - but for the things that can be broken.

In Denmark they obviously think that I can break walls or the floor. The thing that really surprised me, was the amount of money put into the deposit - you pay the rent * 3 months. So when my apartment costs 4600 DKK per month I paid the rent for november + (4600*3)= 13800, so all together it was over 18000 DKK.  And imagine then to buy all the furniture.. (I remember I was sleeping on the mattress one month!) But you can also find lots of things on the street! And it is western country - so they look brand new!

Because of the big deposit it is good to live in dormitory  (deposit is much smaller) or to live with someone else, BUT :

It is a rule in Denmark that when you rent an apartment and when it has 2 rooms - you should just live in 2 people. Number of room equals number of people living in the apartment. Otherwise if you try to "cheat" and live in 3-room apartment in 6 people and you are all registered under this address on a post office or in danish kommune , they might kick you out and give you a fee! And trust me - they know everything ;)

As an example of a girl who is studying hard and working to get a good life in Aalborg, I can set Mirella Manyi who achieved everything what you are going to see in this video with her own input.

Here is also video made by multimedia design students from our school about studying and living in Aalborg, you should definetely check it out!

               

Have a nice day watching the videos and wait fot the blog post about UCN Sports Cup!

Aleksandra

Ps. If you are thinking of Hospitality and tourism management programme here is the UCN blog especially for you. You can clik HERE and know some more about the programme and people studying it - in danish and in english, enjoy !

Acommodation Part 1

I hope you have had a nice week. 

Many of you is preparing to come to Aalborg in September this year, and you are sending me questions about the accommodation and my experience with that. I decided to create blog post, clearing that up, so it is available for everyone.  Hopefully you get a nice weekend reading that.

When I first came to Aalborg (remember that very well – it was 24.08.2009) I was also concerned about the accommodation.  I did not look for anything while being in Poland (that was my mistake) and I arrived here without any flat, just with three suitcases of clothes, toiletries and food (yes, food :) ).  That time UCN had many students coming up, so it was impossible to find apartments or place in dormitories for all of them. They informed me that I will stay in Danhostel ( the same place as we developed concept for them (read post below), but it was not a room in a hostel. It was in a camp house with 5 other people inside (see pictures below).First I thought to myself – Oh My God. Where I am? Why I came to Denmark? What I am supposed to do in a middle of nowhere without any privacy? Do I really not have any fridge to keep my ham and cheeses from Poland?

Camp House I was living in

After my one-day breakdown I met other 50 students who were dealing with the same problem. We decided that it is just waste of time to complain and we started to get to know each other, organize some parties and feel like there were holidays with great friends. These holidays lasted almost 2 months! School of course helped us with payments – we paid half of the price for staying there. 

Bathroom in my room

Meanwhile when we were living in Danhostel, there was one dormitory which was finishing constructions to host us. Some of the students came back to their home countries - it was too much for them I guess, some of them found apartments and I moved in to UC House. The dormitory was fresh, and very luxury I would say. I just know dormitories in Poland which are dirty and just used for parties. Most rooms have the size of 20 m² and have private toilets. Prices range from DKK 1850 to DKK 2450 for a single room and DKK 1325 to DKK 1525 per person for two people in a shared room. There is installed a fridge in all rooms. We had also very big living room with a large and flat TV screen and sofas. There was also nice terrace where you can go out and sunbathe in the summer on a really nice grass. All rooms have beds, desk (1 for one person), chairs and internet connection. 

Came back do dormitory after Christmas break- lots of food!

Room - table and red shelfs bought in IKEA

I really liked it in the beginning but one thing, which was the biggest issue for me was common kitchen for around 5-10 rooms. As you can imagine not everyone keep it tidy. Owner of the dormitory hired some students to help with cleaning or some reparations once ot twice in a week, which was really helpful move. 

Since I love to cook and I love to spend my free time preparing something delicious, that was my motivation to move out before summer and have my own kitchen. When I came back, I decided to look for an apartment.

Subscribe (you can do it in the left, adding your email address) and follow my blog – so you know when is the next post about the flat in Aalborg, payments, deposit and my biggest surprise when looking for a place to stay!

Aleksandra

PS. Cirque de Glace - Coming this week to Aalborg! International Russian stars with the great ice-circus, in a thrilling and breathtaking show! Prices starts from 260 DKK but as a student in Denmark you can get the tickets for 120 DKK on the day of the show! Just hurry up - these discounts are limited!

Radical New Thinking Camp

If you think that in UCN we have lectures just in the classrooms you are very wrong! Since I am studying International Hospitality Management I can tell you about my trip, but there is much more going on in the other programmes! 

On Monday 6^th of February our school took us to Seaby, city 50km away from Aalborg. We stayed there 2 days, but it was not a trip to have fun, we were all studying there. The supervisors Lone Moller Wejrum (teacher of economics) and Helle Hvass Markusen (coordinator of my specialisation) took our phones away and told us, that we are not supposed to have any breaks, because we distract ourselves and others in innovative thinking. (Now I know they were right!) They separated us in 10 teams and we had to develop marketing actions for an organisation that has over 90 hostels around whole Denmark. The company’s owners were there to keep us on track, answer our questions, but we did not know anything about their website or actions. 

The camp was called Radical New thinking, but what it is? Radical New Thinking is a research-based method to develop the products, processes, and market structures of the future through innovative thinking. Our goal was to develop internal (5groups) and external (5groups) marketing actions in a new, radical and creative way. We were studying the whole Monday, even at night till 3 am and then we  woke up at 7 to start handling the project again. Tuesday afternoon we had to present our results to the judges – the same owners of the company mentioned before.




Judges

My group did not win (although I think it should!  hahaha) but we had lots of fun during the camp. You can check the video below.

Break for a picture of 3 groups

 

I think Radical New thinking camp was the best idea, that UCN created for the students. It allowed international students to construct new friendships and connections, through learning activities and also fun. It was all about creativity and opening our minds for better and greater ideas. It certainly helped me to get more experience in the field of marketing and hospitality management which I can use in my future career. The camp helped me to look on my life with different eyes, thank you UCN. :)

In the night we got really crazy..

Eating but also working process!

Lunch!

The winners group presenting their ideas

During the presentation

 

Ps. Remember of Friday 17^th of February! We have UCN Sports Winter Cup – do not forget to sign up either for ice hockey, volleyball, basketball, football, zumba or yoga!:) There is going to be around 500 students of UCN! It is going to be a good day!! 

As promised - Enjoy short video:)

Have a good weekend !
Aleksandra

UCN Goes to Poland

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my blog. First of all I would like to thank you, for finding your time to stop by. I promise you will find here many information about school, city, different events and discounts for them, among many others.

University College of Northern Denmark became really active in promoting school to international students. They are willing to offer you opportunity of studying abroad and finding your own place in your future career. UCN Ambassadors (read more here) took part in promoting school in Hungary, Bulgaria and Estonia, what allow them to spend some free time in their home countries.

Me - presenting the school

I was also a member of doing marketing actions in Poland. I had opportunity to show my beautiful country to Mette Samuelsen – Head of International Relations in our school.

Prospective students on UCN presentation in Poland

In December 2011 we went to Lower Silesia in order to make high school visits there. That was very valuable time since Mette could present everything from recruitment point of view and I could explain my younger colleges how international student’s life really look like. After 3 days spent in the schools, we were included to promote UCN in fair “Targi Mobilności studenckiej” in Krakow. You can see some pictures below.

Presnting school in Krakow fair

Students asking many questions

I can tell you that even students from prestige school – Jagiellonian University were so fascinated about UCN and its programmes, that are willing to quit their current studies and apply to begin their new life in Aalborg, Denmark.

If you are still thinking of changing your life, just do it! Remember that  

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” 

I promise you that if you will get out of a bubble, you will not regret that. 

I can agree. Decision of moving out to different country, changing your school and group of friends,  counting money for every month and taking care of yourself may look like a dramatic revolution, but it will result in your future life.  

Just take the opportunity and ENJOY!

Aleksandra

PS. Bonus for you guys!

Me, enjoying 'pierogi'

Mette Samuelsen, trying traditional, polish food

 Radio interview

You can check the interview for Polish radio here (unfortuanetely in polish)