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!