Food Hygiene Course in UCN

Hi UCN'ers!

How do you like my new greeting? I thought it is kind of cool to name all of us UCN-ers, haha:) If you have any other suggestion, please leave it down below. You are the one who is reading that, my beloved Me-You-UCN readers:)

On one of the ambassadors meetings, Dorit, International Internship Consultant, informed me that there is going to be a food hygiene course in our school. I was really excited when I found out about that, and of course wanted to try it out. I am the kind of person that loves to try everything new. 

What is the Food Hygiene Certificate then? Saying shortly - it is the full 3 day course (from 8:00 - 15:00) provided by AMU Nordjylland (they run the education for development of people to follow the market needs) and it is followed by an exam on the last day. If you pass the exam - you are going to get the certificate that is going to help you with finding work in any kind of restaurant, hotel, cafe or even cleaning company. the course is approved by the Danish Ministry of Children and Education in Denmark and every employee in the mentioned businesses is obligated to have this course. But personally, after spending 3 days on this 'food hygiene training' I think that every person schould have this certificate because we learned so many usefull information that we can implement them right now to make our life healthier.

the book provided in the course

Now I am going to embarrass myself - just before the course, I made a delicious tiramisu, adding 2 normal eggs. However on the day of the course I found out, the eggs should be pasteurized, because tiramisu is the cold cake. Of course if I would do that working in a cafe or restaurant and the eggs would contain salmonella, I would be guilty of the sickness of my guests. Thanks God I was the only one eating my tiramisu.. ;)

That is just one small example, but we had so many of them.. and besides the course itself you have possibility to meet new people and spend some good time. The classes are run by a lady, who worked as a chef in a restaurant in London, her name is Helle and she is really great! We had so many jokes and she run the classes in such a positive way that every information stays in your head - therefore you do not have any problem with passing the exam.

However, I am sure all of you are wondering, how much this 3 day course must cost. Well, UCN made a great cooperation with AMU and we, as students are obligated to pay only 180 DKK (which is around 20euro) and the school is paying the rest. The course itself is worth around 680 DKK. I think it is a great opportunity, if you are willing to find work here, especially for Service, hospitality and Tourism Management students. Hey, we need to start from a scratch, right?!

October's participants :)

The next course is on November 19th, but it is already fully booked, but you can still sign up for the one in march 2013 which will be from 3rd til 6th:) Contact Dorit Kjærulff Torp on this email address You should definetely try that, because remember that you never know when you are going to need that.. :)

- Aleksandra

Real Life Education

Hi Everyone!

It is already a second week of your studies at UCN! I can not believe the time flyes by so fast. Let me know, how are your first impressions! I am very, very courios.

As I was talking to some students you are very impressed how many group works you are having during your studies. Well, I must say - I am very individualistic, coming from an eastern european country, where all you have, you have to hide and be very untrustful to the work and personal life of other people. Therefore when I arrived to the danish study environment I did not like to work in groups and share my knoweledge and experience with some other students ,who I did not know at all.

Well, I needed to change it, because you could easily see the results of not working in a group and putting your input into it. After that, when it came to some important projects, students who did not like to work together, they had difficulties to find a group, or to be visible by the teachers. The grades went down suddenely and the person had difficulties in finding their mates.

Danish education puts the biggest focus on teaching the students how to put the relevant theory into action. That is why, it is really important to get from the teachers the assignments to work on and discuss it with more people. Then the result of a finished task is visible from many different eyes, opinions, suggestions and ideas. We are all different and we all have various backgrounds, what is an amazing advantage in a global perspective. That is why, it is so important that you find people from different countries when working on a task - you have a bigger possibility that your project will be the one, that will move  in a wide range of knoweledge thanks to cultural differences.

Therefore it is obligatory that all the students have their dreamed internships, abroad or in Denmark. It is very important to show, how much do we know, and how much we can provide for our employees. Here you can read a blog post created recentely about my experience, fulfilling my first internship in Malta. Here is also a video for you, from UCN Student Help Desk which includes the students of UCN who are also practicing their knoweledge in a 'Real Life Education' :)



 

Also our school is organising trips like Reality Camp or Radical New Thinking Camp (More info with videos and pictures here) when we need to work for a company, during the day and night :)

 

Hopefully you get the idea right now, behind the whole practice UCN concept :)

 

I promise, I will come back to you with more posts soon, but please - share your opinion and your ideas for a new blog posts! So I know what to write about to satisfy your needs :)

 

Good luck with your school projects and remember to work well in a team!

 

Aleksandra :)

 



UCN Sport Cup

Hi Everyone!

Today just a little update. Do you remember the blog post about health agents? I was mentioning there about sport activities that the school is organising for all the students. Luckily I had the possibility to interview Lars Olsen - Student Counsellor and International coordinator, my aim was to find out, why the school is doing something like that. Unfortuanately you need to watch that with your headphones because the sound is very low from 24th sec. of watching, but it comes back to normal after 20 seconds. I will write that part for you here :

"In the summer, it's around, let me see, around 800 - 900 people who are doing sport, in the winter is around 600. Winter cup is not that big as in the summer,also because the winter cup has started 3 years ago, but it will grow, will be bigger and bigger" - Lars Olsen

As I was mentioning - I love UCN Sport Cups a lot, becuase it is something that not every school is organising, something unique that connects people together.That day Danes and international students play sports and get to know each other. Also for people who do not like team activities,there is possibility to take part in dancing classes / aerobic or joga! I know from Lars, that this year (september 14th) they plan to introduce to us new disciplines and for sure there are going to be more individual activities.

I guess that from the video below you can see everything and it does not need any explanations - so I leave you with that and wish you a great weekend!

Enjoy watching and let me know in the comments beloww what you think and what would you like to know more before coming to Denmark!

-Aleks

Healthy School - That is UCN

Today's post is going to be about UCNs promotion and its focus on health. I am writing about that because I may not be a health agent in the school but I am very interested in that subject and I think it is really amazing that our school initiates activities that are connected to our lifestyles. 

In 2011The Danish Sports Federation offered to our school a health certificate in order to originate in young students and in UCN employee the special interest on health. Creation of that kind of promotion goes with the known in our school concept of 'The Whole Person' (Read about that here ) which helps us, in understanding the school's concept which is focused on head, heart and legs. All these combined are to support us in creating a life, where we have a good knowledge on different areas, but  we are also able to put that into practice.

Behind all the UCN successful health campaign, stand the Health Agents who are the volunteers (students and teachers) in creating different health activities for all the members of UCN.

"The Health Agents’ job is about making healthy choices easy ones and communicating that health is not only about eating the right things and doing the right amount of exercises. Health is first and foremost about feeling good about yourself and others, and through this feeling, getting more energy to handle everyday life."

Personally I am sending you all, to this website Here since I do not know much details about that myself. Just from my perspective, I know that they are doing really a lot, to engage all of the students and employees of UCN in creating a healthy life style. Just when you come in, to the building in Lindholm (where my programme is thought), you can see a big poster saying : "You are the 30th person today that took the stairs" or something like that. :) 

Promoting sport and exercises, every student can get a discount to the famous in all Denmark sport centre called Fitness World, Fysio Fitness, swimming pools and sport wear. All of the students who are interested in loosing weight, can get discount to Danish Weight Consultants. All of us who are struggling with smoking addiction can go to "Stop Smoking" classes. Also UCN has organised every week a zumba or joga classes. Students can also dance in the sports clubs or play football or volleyball.

There are many more but I think the best initiative is created by UCN the Summer and Winter Sports Cups Days. Soon on the blog you will see the video and a blog post from Winter Cup so you know what to expect and what different activities you can do there. Anyway, I guess that most of you are coming in august, so remember to take part in Summer Cup that is organised in September! You can read about that here.

Remember that you can also become a Heath Agent and be more passionate about creating healthy life style for you and others! You can sign up , writing to Development Consultant, Anita Lindkvist Norbjerg on anln@ucn.dk . It will not only help you to get more energy and good feeling about yourself but also be an extra value to your CV! :)

Tell me what you think about UCNs and Danish focus on healthy life style? Remember my last post about Weather in Denmark? I also mentioned there, that Danes love sport! Write comment below if you think that it is a good idea from UCN's site to create this passion also in International Students? Looking forward to hear from you!

Stay healthy,

Aleksandra

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