Tough 1st week in different ways

This week finally my real life as a student started again. After an introductory lecture in customer value and communication management, the whole monday was filled with visiting the different institutes, talking to the professers and getting an image of what each institutes works on mainly.

On tuesday we visited with a group of 4 students a rather small company which develops tuning and performance items for Saab cars - it´s called Hirsch Performance AG. They presented themselves and we had to ask some questions in order to get a picture about customer orientation and stuff like that. It´s not really a tuning in the sense of Fast and Furious movies or Need for Speed Underground games - or can you imagine a Saab with a blue illumination of the bottom? - but still it seems to be a very interesting business. In the afternoon we had prepare a presentation and present "our company" to the other groups which visited other "companies" like St. Galler Tagblatt, Migros Ostschweiz, Radisson Hotel or Kinderdorf Pestalozzi. These first two days started at 8am and ended around 6pm - more or less interesting but very tiring...

Wednesday was the start of real classes (not in terms of introduction). After a lectrue on research projects and methods I had a 4 hours class on business-to-business marketing. It seems to be an interesting topic. Too bad this lecture is from 4 till 8pm... Thursday then was the first quiet day. I only had a class late in the afternoon (6-8pm). But it´s about competition and faireness which makes it not so easy. It seems that it´s a combination of economics and sociology, which are both not my core competencies ;-)

The end of this rather tough week was the hardest part - the funeral of my grandma who died on monday. I think it´s the best for her this way but still it´s sad to lose someone close. And it made me realize, that there are things like topics of discussion (or even fights) which are really not that important...

The start of Episode II

On Thursday and yesterday I had my start of "Life as a Student - Episode II" (hopefully the follow up is as good as Part I). First there was an introductory afternoon where we got general information about studies here in St. Gallen, then a short campus tour, followed by an introduction into the it-system (which wasn´t very helpful btw) and finally a short info about the library (which wasn´t new for people like me who used the same system at another university in CH). But altough we had fun, because I met a guy with whom I spent 4 years ago very nice 15 weeks hiding in the forrest, shooting around or just waiting for further instruction. He used to study his Bachelor in Basel and now joins HSG like me.

Yesterday was a kick-off event for all master students (not just the newies) with the topic "Social innovation". After a short welcome note from our Dean - which probably tries to implement dramatic pauses after 2 words in order to enhance the importance of his speech - there was a pretty interesting speech from Robert Roth CEO of Job Factory - a company which enables young people internship position to enhance their knowledge because they might face problems with acquiring an apprenticeship position. After a short dialogue session and lunch we decided to leave the event in order to socialise a bit in town...

Ready, set and go

My studies are soon starting again. Here are my next steps:

• going to hooverphonic concert tonight
• leaving bern tomorrow morning
• information event of university in st. gallen tomorrow 2.30 pm
  
• kick-off day for master students on friday from 9.30 am on
  
• recovering from jet-lag on weekend ;-)
• starting with 1st classes and introduction in my masters topic on mon 8 am (isn´t that time a violation of students rights? :)
  

Pimp my room

After a beautiful weekend in Scuol where my cousin married, I travelled on sunday evening directly to St. Gallen. Yesterday evening and today I pimped my room - my new centre of creativity ;-) And tonight I finally got access to our wlan, so everything is set up for the start next week...

I like to move it, move it

It´s been a busy week sofar. After I got home from Fiesch last saturday I started to call people in order to set up visiting dates for free rooms in St. Gallen. I managed to visit 2 flats on monday. Finally on monday evening I had the confirmation of one of them. Means - I have a place to live now!! :))

The day afterwards I went shopping of course, because I needed some furniture for my room. I went to Ikea, Mediamarkt, Shoppyland, Interio and Eschenmoser (no, I didn´t buy everywhere everything!!). Me and my sister (who moves to SG once again) packed our stuff (mostly her stuff of course) into the van we rented. Yesterday then, we drove to St. Gallen, placed my belongings into the cellar of the house where I´ll be living (my room is not yet free) and the went to my sisters place and unpacked her stuff. I can´t believe it - it´s the first flat I saw, which is on ground floor level, but where you have to climb first stairs with 50 steps. And her furniture wasn´t very light... Anyway, no our stuff is where it should be and next week I´m going there once again to set up my room. Do it yourself S.O.S. ;-)

When we were eating lunch yesterday, I got a short message from Nadine, telling me that she´s going to leave tomorrow for her traineeship in London and inviting me to her bye bye party. It´s really funny, she got her position in a company where I applied as well around a year ago. Probably it´s the same traineeship position I applied for but unfortunately didn´t get. So, I know from the job description, that it´s a really exciting position. Nadine, enjoy it and have fun there!! And I wanna know what I missed ;-)

Back from Fiesch

Yesterday in the afternoon I returned from the Berner Feriensportlager in Fiesch. As always it was a great week and as we didn´t sleep that much during the week, I was really tired when I returned - but who wasn´t?!

A week ago the "teachers" started the camp with the journey to Fiesch. After the first meeting with general information we had an apéro and then dinner, followed by a first evening in "our" bar - the bäregrabe;-) On sunday some of the leaders went back to Bern to get the kids there. Me and my co-leader were lucky because someone took our 4 bernese kids and we could stay in Fiesch and spend a relaxing and quiet day there - until the kids arrived.

On monday then our courses started. We had in our "life-saver" course 1 boy from Bern, 3 girls from Bern and 4 girls from Fiesch who were between 13 and 15 years old. We taught them in 8 hours (mo-thu 2 hours) the necessary things they have to know. On friday finally they had the exam - luckily everyone passed ;-) In the afternoon I had to lead twice "Emergency - what to do", once Sauna and once bowling and one afternoon I had off.

But it wasn´t only "teaching" the kids important things. I could do a lot of stuff as well. I went to play unihockey, I did archery twice and played some badminton.

Thursday was a special day. First we had a rescheduling of the afternoon courses because we had a very, very, very important guest who had a short speech: Mr. "Freude herrscht" Adolf Ogi. We had "Vil Fröööd";-) There was another speciality on thursday evening. We (the 2 life-savers plus the 3 divers) organized for our fellow leaders a pool party. We had snacks, some wine, some beer a bit of music - and we enlightened the swimming hall just with 400 candles. It really looked amazing!! Next year I should bring my camera and take pictures for those who don´t believe me!

We learned as well important things from our kids. We learned who´s cool, who they hate. We learned that good, nice things are not "cool" anymore (like in the days we were in school). Today things are "In da house" :=))