A Retrospective Survival Guide for the Regular Student

This post will be written under slightly different circumstances than my previous post, since this is my end of term test in ‘Blogging’, which I like to refer to as ‘Blogging under Pressure’. I’ve written about lots of different issues which were linked to student life somehow and since the semester’s almost over (today is my last day and this is my last exam) I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to pass on some tips and tricks which might make up-coming semester(s) easier to survive.

Tip No.1: Pay special attention during the first session of every course. Even more so when you have a class with a professor you’ve never had before. Since you don’t know the professor in question you likely also won’t know to what he or she pays special attention to. All the notes you take during that first session will help you a lot, and I often find myself going back to these notes. More often than not those notes will be the most detailed and helpful when it comes to handing in papers and written assignments, because every professor is different and focuses her attention on different things.

Tip No. 2: Attend as many sessions as you can if you have lots of lectures. This fortunately hasn’t been the case for me this semester but I thought it would still be a good point for other students that might stumble across this post. The thing is that lectures (VOs - Vorlesungen) tend to be tough because you mostly only sit there for an hour and a half while the professor goes on and on about a particular topic. Some lectures can be really interesting but everyone has a bad day every once in a while and just can’t be bothered to make his way to university for ‘just one lecture’. After all you can read the scripted course notes at home anyway since they can be found online on Blackboard. WRONG! Believe me when I say that you will probably never ever read or even look at these particular course notes until two or three days before the exam. I know how that sounds but I am a student and I know my kind. So, if you want to make your life a lot easier, try to attend class as often as you can. Otherwise you’ll probably want to kill yourself towards the end of the semester when you have to catch up on a year’s worth of course materials in four different lectures within a week or two. It won’t end well for you or your grades.

Tip No. 3: Start early enough with your research when it comes to writing papers. I know how these things usually go: you think you have it all under control and have a rough idea of what you’re going to write. That’s all well and good but if you are in your later semesters you professors expect more than eight to ten pages per paper. I am in my fifth semester now and I had to hand in two papers: one around 20,000 characters with spacing and the other one around 4000 words, which is almost the same length. But it translates into twelve or thirteen written pages, so a ‘rough idea’ about your topic isn’t going to cut it, believe me! I am quite proud of myself for how well I organized things this time around and the so-called ‘key to success’ lies in early research. I spent lots of time in the library about a month before starting to write an outline because the better you are prepared, the better and easier the writing process will be. Of course you could also end up doing too much research, in which case you end up swamped with information and not having a clue about how to process it all. But so far that hasn’t happened and probably never will.

Tip No. 4: Another important thing not to forget are your friends. ‘Social obligations’ might not seem very important in the grand scheme of things but turning into a hermit is not the way to go about things either! Make sure you have enough time to complete your assignments but also make time for your friends; they will thank you dearly. After all, if you only emerge every once in a while from your ‘cave’, that doesn’t do you any good either. Set a clear schedule with time for university and time for friends, so they balance each other out. More often than not you will return to your desk reinvigorated and full of inspiration because you took the time not to think about university for a moment. Your friends will help you keep your mind off things and share the latest news and gossip form your dorm. It’s a win/win situation.

Tip No. 5: During midterm and finals week, sustenance is the key word! You will probably laugh now and haughtily shake your head because really, who has ever heard of a student starving to death! As I already said, I have lived through and survived enough semesters now to know what I am talking about when I say that food is important. The thing is that we probably mean different things when I say ‘food’. Obviously I mean regular meals. What I don’t mean is eating pizza every day because you don’t have time or just can’t be bothered to stand at the stove for half an hour. Midterms and finals can be stressful but if you don’t keep up your strength by eating at least semi-healthy foods, you will be exhausted before you see the light at the end of the tunnel. Check out rockelfe’s post ‘A Tasty Insight’ for some tips and tricks about cooking that don’t rely on pizza from Hofer or their tomato sauce, which goes perfectly well with spaghetti... but contains neither vitamins nor minerals which you need to keep going during finals week.

Tip No. 6: Sleep! I know that most students think that trivial matters such as food and sleep are overrated, but they’re not! You can party the night away if you want, just don’t do it more often than you can handle. While it’s great fun, the lack of sleep will catch up with you eventually, and that happens most often during midterms… All the parties take place at the beginning of the semester to get things off to a fun start. So once they’re all over (and you’ve attended 95% of them), midterms will be right around the corner and then, things aren’t going to be pretty. To sum it up: hit the clubs but not too hard so it won’t affect your course work and participation.

I hope these tips and tricks will be helpful to some of you. But don’t forget: have fun during your time as a student and enjoy it as much as you can!

Yours truly,
Michelle

The Urge to leave Salzburg

When people think of Salzburg, my primary residence of choice while I am completing my studies, they have these pictures in mind.

The winter version of this picture would be the following:

There are many reasons why students come to Salzburg. Some don’t find the educational options in their home country or province adequate or they just want to take the first tentative steps towards independence. Others just want to leave home for no particular reason at all. The reason why I left Luxemburg, my home country, is the first one I listed. The University of Luxemburg was founded in 2003 and isn’t well established yet. I have the feeling that the degree in Salzburg will be more useful for my future plans. The degree I will end up having fits my needs so coming to Salzburg seemed like an obvious choice to me.

Even though Salzburg is my adoptive home, that doesn’t mean that I love the city unconditionally. There are times when the temptation to pack my bags and leave is very hard to resist. I’m also pretty sure that many students feel this way every once in a while and the reasons are probably wide and varied.

I often feel the need to leave mid-semester, which is either around end of April or end of November. I like to call this my ‘mid-semester depression’ and lots of factors accumulate around this time. First, I tend to miss my friends from home. It’s easy to say that nowadays a person is only a phone call away, but sometimes a phone call isn’t enough. And since I’ve lived in Luxemburg for the last 12 years, homesickness not only for the people but also for the country isn’t far off either. On the surface Salzburg and Luxemburg City (the capital) seem very similar because both places have a fortress but I have the feeling that Luxemburg is more cosmopolitan.

Of course you cannot forget to mention the factor ’University’ when talking about wanting to leave. When my ‘mid-semester depression’ hits, I usually feel over-worked and frustrated because midterms need to be taken care of. There is only so much cramming you can do and around the second week of mid-terms, frustration takes over and everything seems pointless. I’m aware that this sounds very negative but this is one of the instances when the urge to leave is most prominent and I can only speak for myself of course.

Now that I listed the reasons why people might want to leave Salzburg in the first place, you also have to be aware of the fact that only very few can actually leave on a whim. It’s a matter of financial means, and time constraints often put a hold on spontaneous plans for escape.

If you are in the same position as I am, you cannot just pack up and leave. This is why I have compiled a three-step program to lessen the urge and make staying in Salzburg bearable again.

First: don’t brood! Brooding might seem like the best course of action because you don’t want to come across as whiny or because you don’t want to burden your friends. In my opinion, that’s silly. Brooding and sulking about your situation will not improve it in any way, shape or form. On the contrary, you will make yourself feel worse, because if you will be keeping everything bottled up and letting it fester. Of course, I sound like a pseudo-psychologist now but I actually am speaking from personal experience so please bear with me. This first step also includes talking to the new friends you made in Salzburg. No one will laugh at you if you feel well and truly miserable. They will gladly lend you a shoulder to cry on and once you’ve broken out of the brooding mindset, things will improve steadily. I’m quite lucky to live in a dorm where we are a tight-knit community and support each other. If you don’t feel well, you’re never on your own, and after all the ‘strong and silent’ type has been out for a while now

Second: reconnect with your friends from home, even though they are far away. Modern communication technologies make staying in touch so very easy. If you aren’t in the mood to write long-winded e-mails or can’t afford huge phone bills, just post a little something on their wall on Facebook. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have their definite advantages. It’s easy to simply comment on the status of a friend you haven’t talked to in a while. One more option would be MSN or Skype. If you throw a webcam into the mix you can actually have a face-to-face conversation of sorts and the feeling of loneliness and homesickness will slowly but surely dissipate.

Third, I recommend setting up a clear schedule. Even when you have midterms to prepare for and paper outlines to hand it, it’s important to still have time for social activities. This way you have’ll periods when you can relax a little and it’ll keep you from feeling swamped and overwhelmed.

If you follow these steps, you should be fine in the end, but most things are easier said than done. I know how easy it is to give into temptation and wallow in self-pity. After all, feeling sorry for yourself is definitely easier than taking matters into your own hands to change the situation for the better. Still, if you ever feel the urge to leave Salzburg again try to take into consideration what I mentioned. I sometimes have to resort to this three-step program myself, so these aren’t just empty words. Try to ride it out, let your friends help and things should improve in no time at all. And you’ll grow to appreciate Salzburg again for what it is: an interesting and sometimes even beautiful city.

Yours Truly,
Michelle

Dark Roasted

Everything around me was dark; I could only see a dim light banning its way through a thoroughly covered window at the other end of the room. It was gloomy around me and the monotonous voice coming from the darkest spot of the room had a great similarity to my favorite lullaby. In front of me I could see a bunch of letters and words which changed their positions on a big white screen at approximately 2-minute intervals. The person next to me was already in a whole nother world – at least it seemed so, because her head was smoothly placed on the table and her eyes were closed. I could also hardly keep my eyes open and I have never in my life experienced a greater need for a revitalizing coffee. (Cross my heart!)

Although the scenario described above bears a striking resemblance to George Orwell’s 1984, this is what students regularly experience when once again one of their fellow students tries his luck with a PowerPoint presentation (PPP). No offense, I totally get the fact, that not everyone is a born rhetorical genius, but at university level everyone should at least be able to deal with the basics of conducting a not all too boring presentation.

It begins in the 7^th or 8^th grade, when you’re asked to do a presentation for the very first time in your life. Usually this is in one of your scientific classes like Biology, or Geography (I did my first on dogs). At this point your teacher will most probably hand out a complete list of Dos and Don’ts on how to do a good presentation, like DON’T READ or DON’T STARE OFF INTO SPACE (if not try Presentations for Dummies). So why not simply stick to these rules? I just can’t listen to someone who never looks at me or seems to be reading out Hamlet’s soliloquy without any sense of intonation, never averting his eyes from the excessively long sheet of keywords in front of him. From secondary school onwards students prepare and give presentations on a regular basis. Most likely you will also have the privilege of taking part in at least 5 rhetorics seminars in your school days, where again and again (and again) people try to teach you how to speak in front of an audience. So the procedure shouldn’t be all that unfamiliar by the time you get to university.

The technological revolutions of the 20^th century haven’t really solved the problem of having to endure bad presentations – and they seem to have made them worse. Since PP has entered this world people often seem to rely on their virtual friend far too much. Not only do they hope to have their overloaded PPP speak for themselves, they also try to include every single function the tool offers into their presentation. Honestly, it isn’t necessary to have every point on a slide appear line by line, whirling in from different sides and afterwards fading away. It also gets kind of annoying to listen to someone who constantly has to click his mouse until all 10 points of information are finally on the screen. Although this gets really interesting when someone from the audience asks if he or she could see the previous slide again and the poor “clicker” at the speaker’s desk needs to click all the way back and forth once again. (Never tried it? - It’s definitely worth it.)

Another thing that makes me aggressive while listening to a presentation is when people try to spice up their PPPs with unnecessary clip art. I mean, take the case of the all too well known Microsoft Office classic (illustrated below):

Especially in companies where presenters often try to offer solutions to certain problems in their company they tend to include this particular piece of clip art in one of their slides as an attempt to represent pictorially the “aha experience” of their ideas coming to the rescue (seriously, not working). Students seem to walk right into the same trap. Admittedly, the little man with the pointing finger and the light bulb above his head looked kind of charming the first time I saw him, but I get embarrassed at the mere sight of him in a presentation. I can’t help it. It’s like Pavlovian conditioning. So whenever this appearance makes me start from my half-sleep, I seriously lose my nerve. The same goes for pre-made PP designs, although I regularly catch myself starting to use them too. It isn’t really a problem when you are the first presenter in a new semester, but after seeing PP slides with the same design three times in a row, it gets annoying.

So what’s the point of this blog post you might ask? Well. No, I can’t help you to become a better presenter, nor can I offer you an introduction course to the not yet entirely explored depths of PowerPoint. Still, there is one thing I would ask you to do (for my sake and that of your fellow students): the next time you confront us with one of your PPPs, just be so kind and go over your 7th-grade teacher’s list of Dos and Don’ts beforehand.

With a little help from my friends

Or to be more precise, from one of my professors, I got by and was able to write a (hopefully convincing enough) letter of purpose. The letter of purpose is the first and probably most important application document that people, usually the coordinator, will look at. Like I mentioned in my last post, you give your reasons for choosing that specific university and explain your academic goals. But that’s not everything. Selling yourself is equally important, even though you should always try to relate this back to the university, your academic goals, etc.

Now, what should you have done up to the point where you start writing your letter of purpose (for the sake of space, I'll just refer to it as LoP in the future.) You should have chosen one (or preferably more) universities you are interested in, established contact with the coordinator (and had a meeting), and consequently come up with a mental list of reasons (or literally written down) for your choice of university. Before you get started with this, let me share some of my wisdom. Having your CV in front of you (more on that in one of my next posts), can be very helpful. In your LoP, you should manage to combine your sparkling personality traits with your life achievements and relate them to your chosen university, courses that the university offers, your general academic goals, and why this particular university would actually benefit from having you there. Don’t forget to mention why you would like to study abroad at that particular time in your academic career, either. You might even want to mention something about it having a link to your dissertation (even if that won’t happen for another couple of semesters). In the end, your LoP should clearly show that you are a very (hopefully even the) most desirable candidate for your chosen university. As I’ve mentioned above, I had a little (or a lot) of help from one of my professors. Since not everyone out there will have that possibility, I’ll try to share as much of what I’ve learned during that time to make it easier for my fellow sufferers.

So far it seems simple enough. The first problem you’ll come across before starting to write is the question: how and where do I start? The introduction of the LoP is definitely the hardest part. So in order not to completely freak out after half an hour and maybe one written sentence, do what I did: do not start with the introduction. After a slight obsession with my two picks, I knew exactly why I wanted to go to these particular universities. So it wasn’t too hard to start there. Some of the points I mentioned in my LoP were the reputation of the universities, their locations (e.g. close to the ocean), special science labs, to name but a few. Not to lose sight of the big picture here: this was only one paragraph of my LoP. In the end I had about 1,000 words, just so you know. And from what I can see now while writing this blog post, it’ll probably end up being about the same length.

Well, now how do you continue? To guide you through all the things you have to consider, I’ll state a few questions that my professor asked me at the beginning of this (sometimes torturous) writing procedure:

· Why did you choose XYZ university in academic terms? Which courses do you intend to take? What reputation does XYZ have? What are their specialist research areas? Link this to your own research/interests.
· Social aspect: Consider what you find appealing about campus life, societies (e.g. international societies), etc.
· What can you offer them? Mention your traveling experience, independence, maturity, problem solving skills, previous job experience, etc.

My LoP was more or less arranged in these three sections. After a more general introduction where I referred to my traveling experience and why I am studying English (apart from my second major in a natural science), the second paragraph was about the particular university, how I came to know about it, what I do know about it (e.g. about its societies, special courses and science labs), and what fascinates me about it (campus, libraries, location, reputation). Then I moved on to my academic goals. I wrote (and here I quote from my first draft, i.e. still unrevised) “[m]y academic goals include the complete mastery of the English language”. There were worries after this statement that I actually wanted to conquer the world or something like that, so I decided to revise it. Just to make it clear: I do not want to conquer the world... yet.

In the last part of my LoP, I concentrated on “selling” myself. That means I referred to my work (hence the advice with the CV) and travel experience. By pointing out the most important lessons I’ve learned from these experiences, I could show how they helped me become an independent and mature person who is adept at solving problems (and who one day will “take over the world”). In this section you could also mention some of your extra-curricular activities, e.g. if you play in a brass band (FYI, I don’t do that), volunteer for the Red Cross, or if you are a tutor. This would answer the last questions I mentioned above, about what you can offer the university.

After answering the questions, you’ll still have to come up with a good conclusion (and of course introduction). In the conclusion you should just emphasize again why you would benefit from a particular university and how that university could also benefit from you – it’s always a give and take, isn’t it? And definitely give it to someone else (e.g. a friend or colleague) to read before you submit it. This person will hopefully think it's coherent and logical. Don’t forget to proof-read it, either. Remember that Word can check spelling and grammar; and even though you shouldn’t completely rely on this feature, it can be very helpful.)

That’s it for now after, as I predicted, about 1,000 words.

Yours truly,

Lemon

The Ultimate Helper

Five situations in which coffee makes your student life easier

by Mokka

5 Have you ever been totally out of energy and couldn’t go any further with your reading assignments and preparation for classes the next day? A double shot of espresso might be the answer. Especially if you are the procrastinating type of student who can never decide which of the thousand things on his To-Do List to start with and later realizes that he hasn’t actually started with anything at all. In cases like this nothing is more helpful than a midnight coffee. It not only wakes you up but also gives you new ideas and hopes.

4 Student life can be uncomfortable and unpleasant. This is definitely the case when the person responsible for the university heating system has once again taken a day off (or even a week), which regularly seems to be the case in more than one of the buildings at Salzburg University. Sound familiar? Well, you might want to prepare yourself for the next lecture and bring along something hot to cling to (and I’m not talking about the student sitting next to you). A big cup of steaming coffee does double duty.

3 Honestly, did you ever think that a whole shelf of books in your faculty’s library would be rightfully yours? No? Then you can regard yourself as lucky, one of the ten percent of students who don’t have problems bringing back library books on time. Computerizing the card catalogue just hasn’t made our life easier. Even though you would just have to log onto the library system and press the “renew all” button, but it’s just not as easy as it sounds. Next time you bring back your library books and they are once again - not quite on time - try to bribe the library assistant with a cup of delicious coffee. Investing in that cup of coffee could save you a lot of money.

2 Imagine a perfect lunch break: sitting on the grassy bank of the Salzach River totally absorbed in your soon-to-be favorite book from your reading list. It is a warm and sunny afternoon and you finally have some time to relax from your busy morning What could make such a hypothetical afternoon even better? Of course, a delicious and cooling iced coffee…. Admittedly, this scenario sounds quite utopian for Salzburg weather conditions since you usually spend your lunch breaks in a cafeteria that is so packed that you have to sit at a table with totally strange people. Reality has you back. What remains is the iced coffee (though you’ll have to venture beyond the cafeteria to get one).

1 According to the almighty wisdom of Wikipedia the Ethiopians were the first to discover the energizing effect of the coffee bean. Over four centuries ago these people might not even have realized what great deed they performed for humanity. Thanks to Leonhard Rauwolf (unfortunately a German botanist not an Austrian), who was the first European to recognize the magic of the coffee plant, it is now easier for students to deal with their daily struggles and frustrations. No matter if you are an early bird and usually get up at 4:30 a.m. to finish your homework and cram for the upcoming test, or if you are a night owl, coffee has no time limit and keeps you awake whenever you need it.