Travelling

It's been already four weeks since I left Switzerland and came here to Rotterdam for my exchange term. Apart from getting used to the city, studying during the day, partying during the night, sleeping at unsual hours I was also travelling around on the past three weekends.
After two weeks of getting accustomed to Rotterdam, a bunch of exchange students wanted to go to Carnival in another city. First we came up with the plan to travel to Köln, but as it was too expensive for some of us we dropped this plan although few exchangers were already there. Instead we went to Maastricht where we spent the early afternoon watching the parade, then went to lunch in a Pizzeria before enjoying the party on the streets of the city. As we had the impression that we wouldn't be able to party the whole night because we didn't see any clubs, we decided to head back with the last train from Maastricht towards Eindhoven where we switched to another train to Rotterdam, where we finally arrived at around 3am. As I left my bike home I had the pleasure to walk back home for half an hour.
The week after our Maastricht trip, my dutch buddy Iris suggested to go for a dinner with all here international buddies. The plan developped further and further and in the end we decided to head to Den Haag for a day. It was one of few very beautiful and not too cold days here in Netherlands. We therefore decided to head to Scheveningen and go to the beach where we had some fun taking jumping pictures and enjoying just the nice weather. After walking a bit around in the city centre we finally went to dinner which was more a hilarious than a delicious experience. But even this couldn't change our mood and it provided us of course with some new material for jokes. After dinner and a desert we headed back to Rotterdam where very few party animals went out till four o' clock in ther morning. After only a couple of hours of sleep, a group of exchange students met again and had some relaxed sunday lunch before visiting Delfshaven (the only part which wasn't bombed during WWII) and the Euromast. Later on we went together to dinner before stopping at the obligatory happy hour in Concordia, the typical students pub for exchangers.
This weekend finally, some friends and I planned to go to Bruxelles. As usual several people backed out and we ended up being only 5. After visiting the royal palace, the Grand Place, Cathédrale Saint-Michel and the Manneken Pis we went for the first time to Delirium, which is the pub holding the Guiness Book World Record with over 2'000 different beers. After only one of them we went to restaurant Chez Leon for dinner before heading back to Delirium for some other beers, where we celebrated the beginning of the 30th birthday of one of the exchange students. Already at around 2am we headed to a hotel where all five of us squeezed in a single and a double-bed room. On sunday we visited then the Museum of fine Art and the European Quarter where we witnessed the auto-corso due to the independence of Kosovo. Our last stop finally was Parc Leopold where we spent some time relaxing and enjoying the sun before heading back to get our luggage and head home to Rotterdam.

Carnival in Maastricht

Beach in Scheveningen (Den Haag)

Rotterdam and the Maas

The beginning of the famous harbour in R'dam

Grand Place in Bruxelles

Back to the core business

After writing about my first impressions and some stories about the social life here, I'll dedicate this post to the reason why I'm actually here - my studies. Studying here at Erasmus Universiteit doesn't feel totally different compared to my previous experiences in Switzerland, but still it's somehow different.
First of all, the studies here are of course affected by the fact that I'm on exchange. My (and as well those of other exchange students) are not the same like they were back home. It's not only about the studies but as well about visiting place, enjoying oneself, going out, meeting friends. Therefore I don't feel as dedicated to my studies as I was some months ago. Nevertheless, we all try to find the right balance between having fun and studying seriously. Although it's sometimes hard to be motivated I believe that we all manage to get on the right track.
Secondly, the approach of teaching is slightly different here. You concentrate yourself on less courses but those are more intense, time consuming and of course important after all because you'll get 10 credits for a master elective and not 3 to 6 like in Switzerland. The result of this is, that we're having around 12h classes per week, assignments to do in 2 days and projects for several weeks plus exam and all those in around 7 weeks and for only one class. And as we're only about 17 students in my class, participation and interaction is more important.
Another thing you can notice here is, that there's no bell ringing all the times. This means that's it's pretty much up to the professor and the classe when and how often they're taking a break. My lecture starts at 9am and usually lasts until 1130/1200 with only one break of 15min. In Switzerland you would have at least three breaks of 15min in this time. And - important to know - there's no academic quarter here. If it says 0900 on the timetable, it is actually 0900 and not 0915. I'm glad that I thought about that point already before the term started and took that into account on my first day of lectures...
As we get 10 credits for one elective I'm only having two courses during my exchange - the first started in the end of january and will last until mid-march and the second class will be from end of march till mid-may. As the course I intended to take for the second block was cancelled I had to choose a new topic, which means I'm now in a course called "Marketing, Technology and Innovation" and will afterwards participate in "Event and Tourism Marketing". Sofar, the topic of my course is pretty interesting. We're discussing topics like how new technologies and markets evolve, how you can use new technologies for marketing purposes etc. Along with lectures we're having to big projects. The first is Google Online Marketing Challenge where student teams around the globe compete against eachother. We're have to plan an AdWords Strategy on Google for a real-life company we had to find and will run our campaign for three weeks. The second project is a Product Development Concept where we have to come up with a concept for creating new products...

Food, drinks and the payment disaster

It's time again for some educational input in here. In a previous post I already mentioned the excessive use of bicycles here. Now I would like to tell some other stuff in order to bring the country a bit closer.

Food&Drinks
Nederlands is not very famous for it's cuisine I guess. When we went out we rather picked a "foreign" restaurant. We went to maroccon or indian place, some even to sushi. But what is typically dutch in my eyes? First of all, lunch is not important to them. They eat sandwhiches or simply broodje met kaas (bread with cheese). A hot meal for lunch is very rare. But what I perceived is, that they eat a lot of smaller things here and there during the whole day. I read about that in a guide about NL and experienced it especially during integration trip where we had small things during the whole day but only a cold lunch. The only thing sofar which I discovered and like a lot are stroopwafels. These are small waffels filled with syrup out of caramel, very delicious but you have to watch that you don't eat too much of them :)
Drinks are not so different than back home. A lot of beers like Heineken, Amstel, Brand or Dommelsch, then wine or water. According to Dutchs, Sodas like Cola or Fanta are not so common but you can buy them everywhere. Apart from that Dutchs like to drink Coffee and Tea. Just make sure you don't go to a Coffeeshop for a coffee :)
Just to note here, coffeeshops are the places where they sell marijuana products. To straighten a prejudice: Although everyone thinks so, consumption of weed, marijuana etc. is NOT legal here. The dutch policy is, that they tolerate it in coffeeshops and at home in order to keep it out of the street and fight against hard drugs. If you're on the street a possesion of max. 5g is tolerated and not more. According to our dutch friends, this policy has led to a low drug abuse rate in Nederlands.

Paying in NL - A complete mess
Nederland is usually perceived as multicultural, open-minded and thus a good place for internationals to live. But if you see the payment system you could come to another conclusion. First of all, they have tons of different cards - everyone must have like a huge wallet to carry all of them. In the end though, everything leads to a dutch bank account, which, of course you can only open if you will be customer for more than a year. The two major ways of payment here are pin (regular bank card - but only dutch cards work) and chipknip (the chip on your banking card). Chipknip is supposed to be for small payments so you can upload cash on the chip and then pay with that. And of course you can only upload your chipknip directly from your dutch bank account. Or, you buy a pre-paid card. You pay 22.50 and get 20 cash on it - thats how they make money here :) To make the living for internationals even more complicated, they probably agreed to refuse credit card, cause you almost can't pay anywhere with creditcard - only pin and chipknip. And at university we were told that there exist even more cards for the same purpose but in different buildings. To show you how ridiculous this whole thing is, I give you the example of printing at university:
To be able to print you need a card (obviously) with a magnetic strip. Bank card and credit card don't work. To put money on your printing card you have to pay - but you can't pay in cash! Either pin or chipknip. Which leaves you more or less only the possibility to buy a pre-paid chipknip to the price already mentioned. The chipknip, obviously, you can't buy with credit card - only with chipknip, bank card or cash. Sooo, in the end, you usually go to an ATM, get money with your card, pay charges there. Then you buy a chipknip, where you pay charges again. The chipknip you can then use to get money on the printing card and now you're able to print your documents!

Ok, that's it sofar. Stay tuned for the next post, which will be probably about studying at RSM...

Too many things to tell

There are so many things to tell but I kind of feel to split it up and publish infos and stories step by step when I have time and in the mood to do so. The first days here in Rotterdam have been a blast. Tonight is the second time I actually decided not to go out and get some rest at home. On the weekend we were partying all night long and even on sunday we went out for a couple of drinks to Concordia, sort of students bar which had had happy hour. After staying home on monday we kicked-off tuesday night with some beers at the bar in the university building (already at 5pm). Afterwards a Deborah & Nisha (two american girls), Andrew & Dave (two canadian guys), Fran (an argentinian guy who just arrived on monday) and me decided to go to an indian place for dinner where they had all you can eat. After stopping by at Dave's place I went home to finish the assignment we had to do for wednesday. Yesterday has been a huge party night again. First we started at Milena's place (bulgarian who lived for the last ten years in US) with some wine and cheese. After (ab)using happy hour at Concordia once again, we went to the international students party at a club called bikini (some club names remind me of the fancy names in Stuttgart) where I left at around 0430 am...

Classes finally started as well on monday. I just have one course which is called Marketing, Technology and Innovation but I'll get 10 ECTS for it. So it's pretty time consuming with around 12 hours of class a week and then assignments and projects. But over all the topic sounds very interesting and the next project coming up is the Google Online Marketing Challenge. Teams from different universities compete against each other in planning and implementing a search engine marketing strategy (Google AdWords) which we will run for three weeks. Although it appears to be interesting and fun, it might just be a bit too time consuming (for exchange) for my taste.

Apart from partying and university I explored a bit the city as well. Rotterdam is a city with a very modern centre and stylish architecture as the city centre was bombed during WWII. But if you go a bit outside of the centre (but still in the city) you'll see all those typical three story, brick-lined buildings. Striking is as well, that if you enter one of the houses you have to climb very steep stairs in the beginning. This might be due to the fact, that the city is located below sea level and this could be a little bit of protection against flood. I attached some pictures to give you an impression of the city...

The building i live in

A bit outside of the centre

Weena

View from university

Erasmusbridge and river Maas

First news from the Netherlands

Hartelijk welkom uit Rotterdam! It's been now approx. five days since I arrived in Netherlands and I already had some time to adapt and get to know the city and some people. As a lot of things already happened I'll just pick out some things to tell here and now. More will probably (hopefully) come later on...
On monday and tuesday i got to know the city a little bit by walking and cycling - yes I already bought a bicycle (fiets). It's very common here to drive by bike and you realize that on the street everyday. As we were told there are around 20 Mio. bikes for 16 Mio. inhabitants in this country. As you can imagine, bikes are everywhere. On every pole you can find next to the street there is at least on bike locked to it. And there are special cycling lanes everywhere in town, which makes it very convenient and relaxing to drive even in the city as you're sort of secured and have your own space. And everyone - pedestrians, cyclists, motorists - is used to it and looks out for bikes so it's even safer. The only thing about bikes which is annoying is, that bikes are getting stolen. So you really have to lock it at all times and rule number one you learn is, that the lock should appear to be more expensive than the bike. But still, there are junkies who steal and then sell bikes in order to earn their money. One of our dutch buddies already told us, that he once bought his own bike back from a junkie for 5€.
In the evening of tuesday I finally got to know my dutch buddy Iris and some of the exchange students. We met for dinner in a maroccon place, which served very delicious food. After eating we went for some beers or drinks before heading home at around midnight (of course by bike through the almost empty streets of R'dam). As mentioned, everyone of us exchangers got a dutch buddy, which is taking part in the international exchange program as well and should help us to get along and get to know a bit dutch culture. Intersting fact about this is, that 2 out of 6 buddies are AIESECers who were P/VP in LC R'dam :)
After those first two days we went on an integration trip from wednesday till today. We were in a hostel (called "stayokay" :) in the eastern part of netherlands between Arnhem and Enschede close to the german border. We had some get to know, trust and confidence or just fun activities like bowling. In the evening we had first a dutch evening and then an international cabaret followed by some for me (and several for others) drinks. But it was cool and fun to get to know the other exchange students. We are a very multicultural group with eg. people from Indonesia, Taiwan, Spain, France and Norway as well as from US or Argentina.
About the university I can't tell you that much yet as I have been there only shortly. Confusing though are only the names of the uni. The whole university is called Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. This is not because people who are on exchange take part in the erasmus program, but because Erasmus was a famous dutch philosopher. Even some dutch people don't get that, as they think that the Erasmusbrug (bridge over the river Maas) is called like that because Erasmus was the architect of the bridge. In this Erasmus Universiteit are different departments and faculties. I'll be studying in the RSM, the Rotterdam School of Management. My first lecture will start on monday and it's called Marketing, Technology and Innovation. As we found out on our trip another exchange student is taking that too, Pavel from Prague. For the second course I have to look for a new topic as they just informed me that the one I was supposed to take had been cancelled. Well there are not so many options which interest me, but at least I have now the advantage that I know who of the exchange students will take which course and that might slightly influence my decision as well, as it's probably more fun to study together. Anyways, I didn't decide yet and we'll see. I still have time till monday to get to a decision. But now, we'll first go to dinner together and then probably for a drink or to a club. What a nice life it still is after handing in the thesis and before lectures start again...

3...2...1...done!

It’s friday evening and I’m sitting in the train back home to Bern. Busy times are lying behind me and the tough days finally come slowly to an end. Time to relax a bit and enjoy life again is coming up. The new year started with studying for an exam, hopefully my last exam on swiss soil ever, which I had last monday. As you can imagine we went to out afterwards - a bit too much. The effects of this evening combined with not sleeping enough and loosing some tension already, made me feel sick the next day. I barely made it to the drug store to buy some stuff against my headache and then went to bed again. My plans of going back home around lunch time and use the day to work on my thesis were rolled over. Anyways in the evening, I still had to go back to Bern as I had a dentist appointment first thing wednesday. Wednesday continued busy. In the morning I finished my thesis and sent it to my dad who printed it for me. After picking up these paper versions, I tried to find a place to bind it. But regulations at university in St. Gallen are so stupid that no copy shop in Bern could do it. Only bookbinder (that’s the correct name although it sound awfully incorrect) would have been able to do it - but of course not in time I wanted it. So, I decided to call a copy shop in St. Gallen which I knew could do it to make an appointment for friday. After running around for that, I had a small interview for a volunteer job at Euro2008. It was quite nice, they have some interesting jobs to do and I think I could score some points;) Not only that with the teams of Netherlands, Italy and France playing in Bern I would have a slight language advantage but as well because the interviewer was a woman from Stuttgart. As I recognized her swabian dialect, I - of course - carefully mentioned that I have been working there :)) In the evening after that I once again met some friends to have a drink and to say goodbye.
Thursday was a bit more quite. I only took care of some small stuff and started to relax a bit. I even took the time to take a nap in the afternoon - I still like the concept of power napping a lot :) In the evening again I was meeting some friends - this time AIESEC oldies from Bern. Today now, I went for the last time to St. Gallen. Not only did I manage to get my thesis finished and to hand it in, but I met another AIESEC friend for lunch and to give her one of my books I used for my thesis - she happens to write her thesis in a similar area. And in the afternoon my successor in the flat finally arrived - Kamil a good friend from Prague who’s spending his exchange term in St. Gallen. After unpacking I showed him a bit around and he finally knows now where to go for the different things he has to take care of.
Now, as mentioned, here I am, in the train back home. Tomorrow there’s the last thing I need to do - transition for my NST job. I’m glad we found some successors and that I can finish that task as well. And it will probably be as well my last step within AIESEC - being finally a grown man and able to walk in to the future. Tomorrow afternoon and on sunday I will be hopefully able to wash my clothes and pack. Then, in the evening my next adventure finally begins: I’m leaving to Rotterdam for my exchange. Hopefully for my last term at an university - ever! The term starts already next wednesday - with an integration trip for all exchange students :) And then on 28th I’ll have my first lecture at RSM. Well after the last few weeks - studying for exams before christmas, writing the second half of my thesis in five days over christmas and studying for an exam again in the first days of January - I assume that I will feel relaxed even although I don’t really have holidays. Anyways, great times lying ahead and I’m finally starting to get ready to rumble!

Beginning of a new era

The new year 2008 will bring some changes for me as you can see already from my blog. The new design is only a small, symbolic change - I decided to set it up already for my next few months in Rotterdam although I'll be still back home for the next couple of days.
2008 will be the beginning of a new era for me because I (hopefully) will finish my studies, which means that my life in the education system which I started around 18 years ago will come to an end. Therefore I will, once again have to make a important decision and face a challenge: find a job. But I have many other plans and ideas for this year. First I go to Rotterdam, to spend my last months on another university - the third one in my students life. The departure date is now set as well - 20th of January. Afterwards I'd like to enjoy the Euro2008 and for the rest of the summer and beginning of fall I have the idea to go to France to pimp my french before finally start to work by the end of the year.
So, in 366 days (yes this year we have again an additional day) I hope to look back and be able to say that it was a successful 2008, that I lived in 3 countries this year, that I found a job and of course that we had an amazing June and tons of fun throughout the whole year :) Let's see what it brings, but I'm optimistic for the next 12 months!

Happy 2008!

Wish you all a good start into 2008!

Thesis Live-Ticker

Short update this time. After partying twice till 5am on wed and thu, helping packing a friend who moved on friday and going back home, I finally managed to sit again on my thesis. I literally hit the keyboard and the output of this weekend has been 9 pages arriving now at page 44. So, only the part about IBM, the reflection of the methodology and the conclusion to go - on max. 16 pages. Finally seeing an end of the tunnel :) Merry xmas! Over and out...

X-am time

One week is left till it's christmas. Two weeks are left, till 2007 changes into 2008. And one month is left till I'll leave to Rotterdam. And I didn't realize any of this yet. Isn't that strange?
Well that's probably how students life is gonna be in the future. You study before christmas, you study during christmas and you study afterwards. Anyway, I'm glad that's it's the last time for me. But I'm somehow glad as well that I have some packed weeks behind me and that I never had the impression to throw a "joss stick"-party, to put a candle in the wind or to go shopping on sundays together with all those "65+"year-old who never have time during the week :)
I finished the interviews for my master thesis last week, handed in my term paper last week, had an exam on friday and one today - no more exams left in 2007. But does that mean that I have time again? Don't think so. Tomorrow I have to finish our report for the praxis project, then in the middle of Jan. I have my last exam in St.Gallen and of course my lovely thesis. I already picture myself during the next two weeks. My best friend: my laptop. Family is trying (!) to sing xmas-songs - Simon is writing thesis under the christmas tree. After having drunk to much wine on christmas - Simon is trying to write on his thesis. New years eve - Simon is spoiling the glass of champagne over his notes and his laptop. Anyways, we'll see if this is gonna be reality. I don't hope it. But hey, there's a good thing to. Everytime when I get bored with celebrations or when there's some work to do I can try to excuse myself as I have to write on my thesis :)))

So on this note, merry christmas! Enjoy it if you can!

The post without a title

Some time ago I wrote here, that there are some actions needed to make it a happy ending here in St. Gallen. Well there's some action going on indeed, but it's a colorful mix of ups and downs. For example in the last two weeks I conducted 6 interviews for my master thesis, I more or less wrote my term paper, we had our group presentation in the "sustainability" lecture, we progress with our practical project and I started last week with studying for my two exams in approx. 1.5 weeks.
The problem is that there are always setbacks. I called today 4 of the 5 clients Hilti gave me to contact for my master thesis interview. 2 asked me to send it by mail because they don't have time for an interview. One told me to call another day but not at 9 o' clock in the morning because they go to coffee break then. And the fourth one doesn't want to help because they don't have time. And Hilti didn't inform them yet that I'll contact them. Then I had a setback with my term paper as I couldn't find case studies. At least this is solved now, was successfull yesterday :)
Then there are group projects which sometimes drive you crazy. I especially liked my people who wrote in the document "we should do this and that" instead of actually making it. Or the one who changed small things in the first half and then wrote a comment that she won't do it for the second half as we should first take a group decision whether we want to change that or not! Aaargh!

Anyways, I have a bit more than a month left to try to finish things here in Switzerland. The ingredients for this time are:

1 thesis to finish
1 paper to hand in
3 exams to take
1 group project to finish
1 day moving my stuff to Bern
1 room to find in Rotterdam
1 nst-transition to make (if i ever get a successor)

and of course

22 days not getting burned by candles
5 days not getting hit by a christmas tree
3 family christmas events to survive
3 times not drowning during different bashes
1 time not falling between 07 and 08

And again at the end of the post, the complaining part is much longer than the celebrating part. what an optimistic person I am :)

Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad,
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you're chewing life's gristle,
Don't grumble
Give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best

Comedy? Horror? Drama?

Let me tell you a story I experience since last wednseday. I'm not quite sure to which genre this story belongs to. Is it a comedy? Or rather a horror story? Or a drama?
Anyways it all begins in August 2007, when one of my flatmates moves out and fills in this form to forward his mail to his mom's address. By mistake he writes my name on it as well because he beliefs he has to indicate someone who will be living in this place afterwards. Then, 3 months (!) pass by and nothing happens.
Now last wednesday my ex-flatmates mom calls me and tells me that she always gets my mail and she can't give it back to the postman because he refuses to take it cause this is my new address in their system (and I don't get any mail since around 2 weeks). We agree that she'll send it in a new envelope to my address and I'll pay the post office here a visit. I did that on thursday and the lady there after some blablabla writes down my name, address and my ex-flatmates name on a blank sheet and tells me she will proceed that as a customer complaint.
Today, one hour ago I get another call from my ex-flatmates mom and she tells me that it has been sent back once again to her. Ok, already a bit pissed off I decide to go to the post office here again. And now the real story starts:
I explain the employee on the counter the situation and first thing she answers me: "that is not our mistake" - yeah, well sure but who cares, I don't give a damn about that, I was actually there to make it change and not to blame anyone. Ok, then I tell here that she needs to change that in the system: "oooh, we can't do that, that can be done only by those upstairs" (who are of course not there on a saturday). ok, then she says something that the postman has to get this info. I tell her that it must be a mistake in the system because my name is still on the mailbox. And that it was quite strange because suddenly my name on the mailbox was crossed and I had to put a new "name tag". "Ooooh, but postmen are not allowed to do that, I must have been someone else" - yeah sure, someone else, coincidentally scratches my ex-flatmates name (the one who moved out) and mine with the same blue pen and didn't cross the names of my other two flatmates - probably this mysterious "someone" was one of my current flatmates... anyways, what could we do. fill in a form, of course - that's what you always do in such situations. it took her ages to fill it in because she didn't have a clue about that form neither did her colleague from the next counter. And in the end she finally says "Ok, let's hope it's gonna work like that!" - Excuse me? Hope? Noooo, now it has to work otherwise it will definitely be your mistake :)

Now key question for students like me who study marketing and always hear stuff about alignement of words and action: Does this experience support the following, very nice statement Swiss Post has on their website?

We think and act in a customer-oriented manner

Customers are at the heart of our every thought and action. Our company recognizes their needs at an early stage and acts correspondingly.

Hopefully not to be continued!

Action required!

These days it's getting dark outside at 5 pm already! These days it's snowing the whole day! If you have a look on a calendar these days, you see an 11. These signs are clearly indicating to me, that everythings coming to an end! The year, the term, the time in St. Gallen, the studies take a bit longer but the end is visible, the time in AIESEC as well. But on the other hand, I have the impression these days, that the time is running out! I see a mountain of work to overcome but the clock keeps ticking. Everything makes it clear, decisions have to be taken, action is required! Now!
This might sound, that I get somehow depressive, stuck in the winter blues with cold grey days and even colder dark nights. But nooo, actually I feel content right now. Why? Because I have the feeling that I'm making progress and acomplish something:

DO-IT
Do-it was last weekend and after some difficult days of planning and organising, re-planning and re-re-planning the conference finally took place. It was a special conference in different ways. First of all, It was my first (and probably only) conference as track responsible and faci. But the Alumni Track was running somehow apart from the rest of the conference. Ok, it a part was because of me, but some other decisions were not mine! And although I belonged to the faci team, I didn't feel like being part of it. I met some old friends from @ time which is of course very cool as well, but you get a bit ambitious over the years and if you don't really meet new people...
Concerning our track itself, not everything turned out as we planned or hoped but there have been developments during the track which I didn't expect at all. Alumni started the discussion where they could be involved and what should be changed. And they insisted to make this happen! On the first glance it looks like a lot of work for us (or better: for our successors:) and it sure is! But if you have a closer look, you can say, that they actually gave us, the NST Alumni Relations bargaining power. Bargaining power we need to negotiate with MC and LCs to finally get them doing something concerning Alumni Relations!

Studies
Concerning studies there is still a whole lot to do and if it doesn't happen now, I don't know when to do everything. For my exchange term in Rotterdam I finally made up my mind and decided which courses to take! Decision taken, acted as well! For the courses I'm taking this term there's still several things to do although we just handed in a case study today. There's a presentation about water problems for households in switzerland coming up in 1.5 weeks. And it's quite difficult for our group to have a presentation about that if guest speakers keep telling you that everyone else will have water problems except switzerland! Then, there is the report for our pracitcal project we have to hand in in a month - yes at the same time I'll have two other exams and all the courses are mandatory for our masters. What great planners those universities are...
On the other hand there's still my master thesis. I was worried the last weeks but now, I think it's getting ok. I have to shift my expectations and try to get all the interviews done before leaving to Rotterdam. But the interview with the first company I had last monday and the one with the second company I'm supposed to get next week. I probably leave it with those two and will interview only their clients but won't try to get another one and hope the brands of those two will outshine my work. I don't thank them yet as work is not finished, but I'm still excited to have Hilti and IBM on board!

busy days

I'm quite busy these days with blockseminary at uni, preparing sessions, migrating data to my new laptop and of course now our internet connection is not working. i'm glad that there are still some unsecured wlans around:) the picture below shows my multitasking with aiesec-email and session preparation for do-it...

Questioning

My life is full of questions at the moment. Some are more important than others of course but I have the impression all of them should be answered immediately.
Why is it impossible for some companies to maintain a proper communication management? I know a student who want to write a master thesis is not the most important task, but still, I think it can´t be possible that the head of a department for business partner in switzerland (of a very well known company) is not able to answer (himself or through an assistant) on an email in 5 weeks, a phone call in 3 weeks and a second phone call in more than a week. How should you be able to get in touch with such people?
Why do universities always say they want to encourage mobility for students but act otherwise? They introduce a bologna-system but let you prepare applications with tons of material if you want to switch, then tell you that you have to do additional courses and complain in the end that they have an additional workload. Or they adapt starting and ending dates of terms but only so much, that it´s not enough to go abroad without any problems. Then they complain that the profs. can´t go to fall holidays with their families anymore. And they won´t let you take an exam earlier if you want to go on an exam term. Question is now, should I stay till the exam and then go or should I go and have to come back to take the exam and then go again...?
What kind of courses should I take in my exchange term? Too many options for criterias: Rather the interesting ones? Rather the ones with not too much workload? Rather the ones with exams or the ones with papers? The ones which offer long weekends or the ones with classes on monday and friday?
And then there are other ones like how should you design an alumni track with mostly very recent alumni? how should you promote something very emotional like a screw? Is the questionnaire for the master thesis gonna work? Is the whole thesis gonna work? And so on. but for now it´s time to go back to work and figure the answers out...

Vocabulary

I´m not really inspired at the moment to write something in my blog. I therefore collected some expressions to help you enhance your vocabulary in the meantime. Today it´s about words you definitely have to know if you´re working in an office... :)

Beepilepsy - The brief seizure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.

Blamestorming - A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Chainsaw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Egosurfing - Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one’s own name.

Glazing - Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?”

GOOD job - A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Irritainment - Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end.

Seagull Manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.

Uninstalled - Euphemism for being fired. Also: decruitment.

Visiting Blacksocks

Today me and a friend visited Samy Liechti founder and owner of Blacksocks in Zürich. We interviewed him for a case study in our course Leadership/Entrepreneurship. Blacksocks is selling a subscription for socks as a core business but extend lately to underwear. It was really intersting to have a chat with Mr. Liechti.
First I´d like to describe the environment. We arrived in front of the house, Blacksocks was supposed to be in, but there wasn´t any indication of a company. There was no sign, the house looked more like a detached house. But the number indicated that we were at the right address. We went to the second floor and even there was no indication or sign. Only because he told me beforehand that we should come to the reception in the second floor passed the door and entered. Inside it looked more like an art gallery than an office. But we were at the right place and the reception lady indicated us the meeting room we could go in. After he arrived as well in the room he offered us coffee and served it himself - in plastic cups, the ones you usually buy in the supermarket for family celebrations. It was a very sympathic ambiance!
Our intervied finally was about the innovation and how they founded a company, characteristics of an entrepreneur and so on. I don´t to reproduce everything but only some things:

• They started back in 1999 to sell on the internet, at a time where only a small part of people already had access to the internet. There were not so many doing this already, that´s why Blacksocks and LeShop were the ones always mentioned as swiss examples for e-business.
• In the first years they were very motivated and euphoric. Everything was going well, there was a hype for the Internet. On 10.9.01 they were almost celebrating, because they got a 4 min. coverage on CNN and they could see live how there sales were increasing. But the day afterwards it hit them as well like many others, but maybe even a bit more. There whole infrastructure for the US market was in the WTC...
• The factors of success he thinks are passion, bravery, simplicity and not being status oriented but loving what your doing and doing it because you like to implement an idea. Simple they still are - most of the stuff they outsource or lease and rent, even the table and the chairs in their meeting room is rented and not their property!
• His best moment with Blacksocks he says, was when they won the Copernican Award in New York and he was standing with this heavy, ugly thing on 5th Avenue (by the way Flickr was on the 2nd place:)

To summarize it was really interesting and I think it would be more fun for students to do more such things than sitting in classes... Aaaand next time you need socks or underwear check out www.blacksocks.com - they might have something for you!

Cheap Miss?

I went today to Coop Ryfflihof in Bern and when I entered there was a huge crowd in the section of the beauty products etc. I wondered what kind of promotion attracts so many people, cause I only saw those 20% discount ceiling hanger. But when I passed I saw the real reason of the crowd: The new Miss Switzerland was signing autographs. But still the questions remains: Is she a cheap Miss or was it just a coincidence?

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

The past

It´s almost a year since I changed university and came to St. Gallen. And it´s more than a year since a came back to Switzerland. In this year several things happened. I got used to studies again, I “got over” my time in Stuttgart, I met new people at a new university, I passed 13 exams, projects or papers, I got selected to go abroad again to Rotterdam for an exchange term and I started “my job” as NST Alumni Relations in AIESEC. Finally I spent 1 week in Slovakia, 1 week in Croatia and 3 weeks in the bunker. When you just look at it, it seems to be packed. But it didn´t feel as intense as my time abroad! Anyway I wouldn´t change the decisions I made...

The present

These days I’m not so much in the mood to do a lot for my studies. I do things for my different courses from time to time, I feel that I´m as well busy with doing other stuff but I get distracted easily and I have the impression of making no progress at all. And I´m certainly not good at planning at the moment. I don´t know where to start, I don´t know which should be the next step and I even don´t know where I´ll spend next week. St.Gallen or Bern? Somehow I´m stuck…

The future

A common question is, “where do you see yourself in a year”? Well, at the moment I see the following: I´ll have to finish my thesis and pass some exams here in St.Gallen. Then I´ll spend some months in the Netherlands studying and hopefully travelling and enjoying life a bit. During this time I should start to look for a job. But I still don´t know yet when I should start to work. There are several options. 1) Starting to work as soon as possible, that would mean on 1^st of June. 2) Have some holidays and enjoy Euro 2008 in Switzerland, this would lead to a starting date on 1^st of July. Or 3) the one I prefer at the moment is, enjoy Euro 08 in June, then go on a language course (would be probably French) for 3 months and start on 1^st of October. Anyway, answer to the initial question: In one year I see myself working my a** off, in a department related to marketing. But until then:

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

U2 - Stuck in a moment

The future is bright...

...the future is orange! Why? I finally got my last grades today for the exams I had almost two months ago - and I both passed them without being brilliant. But this doesn´t matter at all. One of those was french, professional communication, a language exam. I knew from the beginning of my studies in St. Gallen that I have to proof two foreign languages in order to get my degree. But for almost one year I didn´t care at all, until, in June when I had to register for exams I somehow had the idea that I´ll take the french exam this summer. After being registered I knew that I should study a bit as well, and finally around two weeks before the exam I did that but I was bored very soon afterwards - so I didn´t study too hard. Anyway, on the day of the exam I felt completely unprepared. Not because I didn´t study. But when we entered the room I went to my place, took my water bottle, my pens and my markers out and sat down. Then when I looked to the right, to the left, in front and behind me everyone had this Micro Robert (which has around 1000p,) french-french dictionary with them. Back then I had the impression that I was probably the only one who didn´t take the french preparation course for this whole year. But as a joke I told one of my friends in there, that I will do a little freestyling and apparently it worked. So, I´m glad I didn´t spend a whole year learning french, when I could do it in around a week :)
The second exam I had to take was kind of strange as well. It didn´t interest me as it was business law, I couldn´t go to classes as I had master classes at the same time, I had to write it in the gym hall, the whole exam was multiple choice and the grade won´t count for my average. BUT, it was very important at the same time. Without passing, I wouldn´t get a degree and without passing it NOW I couldn´t go abroad. But luckly, I don´t have to worry about that anymore. The future is orange - Rotterdam here I come. Ik studeer nu en beetje Nederlands...