What`s so great about Great Britain?

As it is my last hours in UK before flying to Lithuania for Christmas, I just feel like it would be a crime not to write something about the country I spent last 3 months in.

So, as a first topic about UK I decided to write about small minor things that makes UK different from the rest of Europe. The list I developed looks like that:

1. Wheel in the cars is on the other side.

      Probably everyone knows this before arriving to UK, but it is still quite difficult to adjust to this when crossing the street and to know to which side to look. Consequently, I am looking to both sides before crossing the street. Actually closer to University they have it written with big letters on the street "Look to the left" or "Look to the right" and this really helps.

    2. Socket

      The fact that sockets (plug ins) in UK are different I also knew. So, I prepared for and bought an adapter. But I was not prepared for another minor detail - Sockets here have On/Off buttons and when I arrived in my room all of them were turned off. So, for a while I totally panicked and thought that all sockets in my room are broken. Thankfully, closer analysis of the socket made me to question what does the button on it do and so I discovered that I can turn on and off the socket when I want. Interesting, maybe this helps to save some electricity?

       3. Switches

     

     Another small detail that is quite weird. In Lithuania all the switches for light that I experienced were turned on/off oppositely than here. For example to turn on here I need to press the lower part of switch and to turn off to press the upper part. For light switches this is not such a big deal cause I can clearly see if light is on or off. However, for other situations like socket or ventilation in the kitchen I always had to think when I pressed the button: "Ok, I pressed the lower part, so this means that the ventilation now is.....hm......oh, yes its off".

       4. Sizes & Measurements

       All the sizes I encountered here are different except they still measure temperature in Celsius. Converting kilometres to miles proved to be easy but for not so common measures it again posed a challenge. For example, I went ice skating and the guy who is renting skates asked for my shoe size. Without a lot of thought I said 44. The guy looked at me weirdly and said he thinks my feet can't be that big. So it took me a while to work out that my shoe size in UK is 9,5. 

      5. Cheque books

      This was actually the first time in my life I saw cheque books. You don't know what it is? If you remember TV show "Friends" there they used to write cheques for each other. That was in 1990s!. Yet, apparently I can pay with cheque book for everything here in UK. I can go to a supermarket and instead of card or cash I can write a cheque. I haven't tried it yet, but looks like fun so probably I will try to do it sooner or later cause my bank gave me a few cheque books.

     6. Smoke alarms

      According to the amount of smoke alarms here one can think that this country is constantly on fire. Each and single room has a device like in the picture below on the ceiling. If it's not bad enough that it is annoyingly blinking all the time right above my bed it actually is detecting smoke and then making an alarm. As you can understand the alarm is never because of a fire but because of normal everyday issues - like cooking food, taking a hot shower, smoking inside the room and etc. Thankfully in my place we managed to keep these alarms silent but in dormitories they are quite a problem. Because if one alarm starts ringing even in the middle of the night - it is obligatory for everybody to leave the building immediately until someone responsible detects that there is no fire. Once this alarm even went off in library, a huge 5 storey building was evacuated, closed for 15 minutes and then opened again cause obviously there was no fire.

       7. Two taps

      I know that they used to have two taps because earlier it was considered that hot and cold water is not of the same level in hygiene. But...times are changing and still in brand new buildings it is still two taps. Well, the hot water tap is anyway too hot to use, so I always end up using the cold water tap. This would not be such a big problem, but it is winter outside and temperatures below zero, so it would nice to at least wash hands in warm water.

      So , this is the small list of small unexpected things one should be prepared to encounter in UK, more to come soon!

     p.s. Happy happy Christmas, its almost here!!   

      

-      

Warwick, what`s outside studies?

Hola,

As we all know University years are not only about hard studies and piles of books - there is something more :) And definitely my life here is not limited to books (although they do take a lot of time).

Societies 

The first thing which is totally different from everything I experienced until my arrival here is definitely societies. Society is a club where students can gather under any possible common interest. Societies can be about cultural things (Lithunian society, Polish society), academic stuff (law, maths and.... AIESEC belongs here as well), sports, films, music, religion and basically anything anything at all. Who is interested the full list of societies is here.


And the important thing - this concept really works. All those hundreds and hundreds of societies are active and all the time everywhere in university all kinds of events are happening. I can not remember my facebook wall to be so full of events and invitations. 


Why do students join societies? First thing - there is a big push from university. In first weeks I was always hearing encouragement from University staff and professors to join the societies. Because this makes you special and differentiates from other students. All professors here would say - university life is not only about studying, you should be active in extra curricular activities. Still, the most interesting thing for me is that employers really value persons activeness in societies. If you fill a job application - there will be a question what kind of societies you have attended. And to leave it blank is quite embarrassing..


Since I am not the most passive person I just had to join a few societies. So I joined salsa dancing society and debating society. I am not the best at either of those activities but it is still fun to do something else besides studies.

And in the end if there is no society for the activity one wants to do - action is always encouraged. For example the Lithuanians from Warwick Uni have made a team and play in Warwickshire basketball league and, of course, I joined this team as well.

Career


Each University wants students to get a job and a good one. So, there are events that are organised by University on this topic.


First of all, there are career fairs. To be honest, they did not leave a very good impression for me and I think the method of  Tavo kelias which is organised by AIESEC Lithuania is way better than the career fairs here. Although many companies are coming and participating in the career fairs in Warwick, they don't come very well prepared, send people who cant answer even quite basic questions and basically these events are about collecting a few flyers and that`s it.

Fortunately, that`s not all what is done. Companies are invited and they come quite often to deliver sessions or trainings and students are free to attend these events. The ones I have participated left me a quite good impression because they were not only about spreading the message "this is us, we are cool" but actually delivering some interesting insights of the business sector or methods their business runs.

What is more, there are industrial visits organised. So far I havent been to one, but in January I will go to Land rover factory, which is not very far from here. And I am really looking forward to it. Hopefully, I will get to see how cars are made in reality.

Finally,  there are events here I would have never expected. Just yesterday I received an email that this Thursday we can attend the presentation of new Jaguar xJ model in Warwick university. How amazing is that? We will get to hear all about new innovations and techniques applied in the car and, of course, chance to meet and ask questions for Jaguar designers.

All in all, there are opportunities provided by the University to find a job in UK, but as far as I know about it - it is still not very easy for Warwick graduates to find jobs and the process takes quite some time and effort.

How is it in Warwick?

Well since I caught a flu I happened to have more time to write something on my blog. And this time I wanted to write about University. As you know I`m studying in Warwick, at some rankings 3rd university in UK, in business even 1st one. So, what do I feel like studying here?

Campus vs non campus university


As opposed to Vilnius University where I had my bachelors degree, Warwick is campus university. It means all University facilities are in one place. I can have lectures in one building, after that go to the library, to the swimming pool in sports centre, visit friends in dormitories within a walking distance. The good thing is that in campus there are not only university studying buildings but all other services that a student might require.

There is a nightclub, quite a few bars, sports centre with swimming pool, basketball courts, tennis, food shop and even church for Christians and mosque for Muslims. In other words - campus itself is like a small town and sometimes it happens that students live there and don't really get out to the "outside world".

My opinion - campus university totally makes sense, it is so much more comfortable, the atmosphere is much better and so much time can be saved.

But...

There is one problem - I don't live on campus! The university apparently admits more people than they have dormitories and so I have to live outside and each day take a bus which is quite annoying because public transport in Coventry is not keeping to timetables at all, so I don't have the possibility to feel all the advantages of living on campus.

Teaching methods


Unfortunately, in Vilnius University I did not get a lot of chance to experience high quality lectures in terms of presentation of information. There were a few exceptionally good lecturers (i.e. business English lecturer) but most of other time it was about lecturer speaking and students writing down or some lecturers would even not prepare lectures but give away topics for students to prepare and wash their hands free from working.

I am studying only for 1,5 months only in Warwick but I already noticed a few patterns.

1. Around 1/3 of lectures are given by external speakers


By saying externals I mean not employees of University. They work in the area of the field and as I understand - in good positions. For example if we speak about design - a guy who designs Jaguar cars come, if we speak how much to invest to innovation - a guy from 3M comes, if we speak about protection of technology (patents and etc) - a guy from the government comes. And most importantly - they come prepared. As far as I know all these speakers are participating in the lecture not for the first and most probably not for the last time. So, I am really happy about all these externals cause they make sure that all material given is 100% practical.

Of course, such involvement of externals makes the main lecturer loose control over material given. And sometimes it happens that external speaker moves a little away from the main point of the lecture (I noticed they lack a little information of what was said before them for the students) but even in that case the information they provide is high class and extremely interesting.

2. Games, simulations, case studies


The lecturers here really like to follow up on the information they have given to us by various games. That`s again around 1/3 of the lecture time is being spent by students playing and preparing something.

And usually the games are good! I mean in AIESEC I participated in quite a few conferences and we used this method of teaching through games quite a lot. However, here a few games left really good impression for me. One of the reasons could be the fact that my team won, but I also think they were good games. Simulates really true conditions and changing environment. And the teams are always as international as possible. For example I have been only once in such games in one team with another European student.

3. Lectures by the lecturer himself/herself


Even here there is a variety of methods used. During the lecture anything can happen. For example we could be seeing a film on the topic. Of course if the film is just a person talking (happened one time) it is just really boring, but if it is well produced - it is really good way to present information. For example in product design we watched a show which was broadcasted last year on BBC. It is called "Design for life". I totally recommend to watch it, was really interesting for me.

4.Tests? Exams? No, Assignments!


Yap, you don't get to write tests or exams here. There is no material to learn by heart or store anything in my head. To get a mark after the lectures are finished I have write an assignment.

What is an assignment? It is basically a paper 5000 words long on the topic of lectures. Usually I can choose the topic from few examples.

I think this makes sense cause in life we will have to create something to show our knowledge, there will be noone examining us. On the other hand, there is a minus in Warwick that we are given no chance to present and defend our assignments for lecturers. They are just submitted and then lecturer reads and evaluates.


So far - these are my impressions from Warwick, to be continued soon!

A good new car for $2500, is that possible?

One of ideas I had about my blog is not only to write how I am doing but also to share new things that I learn here in my studies. And recently I had a lecture from Tata Motors about technology transfer. The speaker had really good presentation skills and therefore I decided to analyse a bit how good is the cheapest car in the world.

But about everything in order.

What is Tata Motors?
- India`s largest fully integrated automotive company
- World`s second largest heavy bus manufacturer
- The most popular model Tata Indica had 1 milion models sold in November 2007.
- Owner of Jaguar-Land Rover in Europe.

What is Tata Nano?
Tata Nano is a car that was launched in Mumbai on March 23, 2009. The car was priced of at 130,000 indian rupees or $2500 and is the cheapest new car sold in the world. The car is really tiny, just 3099 mm long and weighs 600 kg. For example my old car Renault Scenic weighed 1400 kg, more than two times more!

What`s the car specifications?

The car has a 2 cylinder, 624 cc engine. It has 35 horse powers and can reach 105 km/h speed. So definitely this car is only for driving in the city. Of course for people living in huge metro areas it makes sense to have this as there is no place to go more than 100 km/h anyway. In my opinion for $2500 these specifications really are worth attention. Just to compare with another city car Smart (produced by Daimler) Tata Nano has only a little bit less power and is 7 times cheaper!

The car is so cheap, maybe it is made of cheap unreliable parts?

To my surprise, the suppliers of many parts for manufacture of Tata Nano are qualitative image companies from Europe and USA. For example Bosch is supplier of the diesel injection pump and Delphi made the instrument cluster. Of course, this does not mean that the suppliers did not use cheapest possible materials, but still I believe that these names give some sort of quality guarantee.

Do people buy it?
In first year there have been sold 60 000 units. But the car has been introduced only in India yet. The introduction of Tata Nano to European markets is planned to happen in 2011.

Why do people buy it?
According to survey in India the main factor to buy Tata Nano, was that price was the same as for the bike, but driving a car would enhance persons social status. Thinking in European reality most probably people would buy it because driving a car and not public transport also enhances one`s social status. The second most popular answer was a suggestion from friends and the third one - the maintenance cost is really low.

Ok, but still there has to be something wrong with this car...
Well, I did a small analysis. The main complaints regarding driving comfort was that Tata Nano is more accident prone, it is uncomfortable car. I have a feeling these complaints are true cause the smaller the car - the more likely it is to be missed by some careless driver and the less space there is for a person.

Regarding the performance the main complaints were that pick up is not effective and engine is not powerful enough. Interesting fact - I could not find in official Tata website any information how fast the car is gaining speed, so this serves as some kind answer for these complaints, it probably takes quite a while to gain 60 km/h or even much longer to get 100 km/h.

Would I buy it?
For me personally - probably not. A tall guy like would look quite interesting in such a car I think. Even though the car looks high enough for my head, I am really concerned how much space is there for my legs. If there is enough - I would consider buying it, but only as a second car, which I use only for city travelling. On the other hand if you are searching for a small car for your daughter/wife - seems to be quite a good option.

But for now - I`ll just have to use the bus.

Welcome!

First of all, welcome to the blog! 

It took quite a while for me to make the decision to start a blog but here it comes! Also big thanks for Andrius for the reminder for me to do it!

So, one more time welcome, I hope you will enjoy to read about my observations, adventures and happenings in UK and maybe somewhere else around the world.

Leaving to UK

The leaving process was not easy at all. Firstly, it was marked with the bankruptcy of the Lithuanian Star 1 airlines. As a result, 3 days before my flight I had to search for a new ticket and Ryanair flight to Bristol saved my day.

This was my first flight with Ryanair and from Kaunas and according to rumours I was expecting the worst like drunk guys sitting next to me and all that stuff. However, in reality nothing like that happened the flight was completely normal, stewardesses were nice and people were polite.

On the other hand, it was really weird for me to observe people in the airport standing by the gate for 1,5 hours before the flight and not just sitting down and relaxing. Is the seat next to the window really worth it?

Welcome to UK


I got a welcome message from UK in the first minute from landing I believe. After passing passport I was approached by a customs officer. The dialogue went like this:
- Hello sir
- Hi
- Where are you from?
- Lithuania
- Please come this way to the room
- Why?
- I would like to scan your luggage...
(Scans my luggage)
Sir, do you have any alcohol or cigarettes?
- You just scanned my luggage.... I have only clothes
- All right, thank you very much for your cooperation.

So, I was left thinking what caused the concern for the officer. My age? My country? Or a combination of both?

Anyway, the rest of Welcome to UK part was really good, the English people are extremely friendly and for a newcomer to feel comfortable there is really easy. So, let`s move to the last welcome part.


Welcome to University of Warwick

And the welcome from University was really well prepared. The first week is orientation week for international students to get used to studying in UK. From the moment I entered University I was sucked into massive load of events and opportunities.


On the orientation week we did all kinds of stuff.:
- There was a fun part (Climbing sessions, Parties each night on different topic like african dances night, latin dances night and so on)
- There was informative stuff about life in UK ( Preparation for cultural shock, trip to Oxford, Trip to Coventry, University campus tour)
- Help to settle in UK (Session about which bank to choose, health centre registration)
- Preparation for studies (study skills sessions)

In general my first experiences of Warwick were really positive. I really expected less from the welcome part from University and I was really satisfied. I know, I know you will ask how are the studies? Well, this I will tell you a little bit later.

Don't worry this is just the welcome part about the life in UK and University, Stay tuned for more, posts  and qualitative ones are coming soon!