Exchange University of St. Gallen

Transcription

1 Exchange University of St. Gallen A story of two lucky Finns who spent their exchange semester in the wonderful, yet costly state of Switzerland. 1

2 Table of contents Preparations Studies Other practicalities 1 2 Preparing for exchange, how to find an apartment? Studies at HSG 3 Free time and practicalities 2

3 Preparations (1/2) Preparations Studies Other practicalities Administrational practicalities Getting ready for the semester in St. Gallen was straightforward. After getting the nomination letter and information of the university the next step was to submit the enrolment confirmation in the beginning of September. The instructions to complete this were thorough and clear. The process required a picture, some printing, signing and scanning. Two alternatives to cope with housing First and perhaps the easier alternative is to apply for the furnished apartments of the Housing office. The fee for this arrangement is 250 CHF. With this amount of money you can basically buy some peace of mind by providing certainty that you will get to live in the same apartment with other exchange students which makes life interesting and additionally you know well in advance that your housing is covered. The rent for a basic room in a shared apartment ranges from 600 to 800 CHF and a standard deposit is paid at the beginning of the semester. The deposit is refunded at the end of the semester if everything is cleaned thoroughly. Overall, the apartments offered by the Housing office are of decent quality. One of us lived in Winkelriedstrasse 6 with three other exchange students from Portugal, Taiwan and California and seldom had a boring day. The location is excellent between the railway station (5min) and the university (10-15min) both within a healthy walking distance. Also the grocery stores were only a 10-minute walk away. Even though the building was quite old and the kitchen floor was of cold stone, everything was working well and the rooms were large. The shower room, toilet and kitchen were shared, with all necessary equipment included. There even was a dishwasher and a coffee machine. Another good location to recommend is Rosenbergstrasse 6. There are also a lot of exchange students there and the apartments are somewhat newer. We suggest to write the location preferences clearly in the housing application form both at a general level (for instance walking distance to university and close to the city center) and at the address level, as some of the apartments are rather far away. The second alternative, which the other one of us chose to execute, is to find the apartment on your own. In doing this the Facebook group Sharing is Caring University St. Gallen will definitely be helpful as there are ads of free rooms on a constant basis. Furthermore is a good site to look for rooms. By taking the time of trying to find an apartment on your own you will probably end up with an apartment with a better price-to-quality ratio but possibly have to take care of furnishing yourself. Additionally, by finding a room in an apartment with local Swiss students is a good way to get to know some locals. Otherwise the exchange students don t have too many mutual events with the Swiss, and getting to know locals is rather rare. Switzerland is expensive be prepared for it Other than housing, the key is to get your financing issues covered before the exchange. Inform KELA in advance of your exchange period and get the student loan. In addition, you can apply for KY, Aalto and Swiss-European Mobility exchange scholarships. You will be informed about the latter by . You should also get the European healthcare card which will be handy proof of sufficient health insurance to provide at the St. Gallen Resident s Office (non-europeans were required to have a stamped and signed insurance coverage certificate from the insurance company). In addition, you are required to take an additional travel insurance in Finland before departure. Furthermore, having some passport pictures taken in Finland ready in your wallet allows you to apply for the train discount cards already on the way to St. Gallen from Zurich airport. Arrival to SG Starting in the first week of March (2 weeks before the semester started) the university offered a zero-credit German intensive language course which usually started at 9 in the morning and lasted for four hours a day. At the beginning of the introductory sessions, there is a placement test, so no worries about the initial questions in the forms. The teachers were very flexible in terms of placement in the intensive language courses and the questions were quite basic multiple choices. It is worth waking up in the morning, getting to know other exchange students and starting with the German studies in St. Gallen. 3

4 Preparations (2/2) Preparations Studies Other practicalities It is a good decision to arrive in St. Gallen approximately 2 weeks before the semester starts, to take care of the necessary paperwork and meet flatmates and other exchange students. During the first two weeks there are also many good events organized by the Buddysystem which are an excellent opportunity to get a lot of friends necessary for getting the most out of the exchange. In the long term this effort made during the first two weeks resulted in a better network. In addition to organizing events for exchange students, everyone is given a personal Buddy, who can be helpful in practical issues. It is recommended to join the Buddysystem as meeting one more local student does not harm you. There is also the opportunity to participate in Tandem where you get the opportunity to practise for instance German and on the other hand teach some other language to a new friend in a relaxed way. Even so, for us it is a bit of a challenge to find a person willing to learn Finnish so perhaps some other combination of languages is needed. The easiest way to get to St. Gallen is to fly to Zurich airport and take a one-hour train ride to St. Gallen from Zurich train station located downstairs of the airport. When getting the flight remember to do that well in advance and buy additional baggage allowance for your extra bags and ski gear if necessary. When you get to Zurich airport you are very likely to want to buy the Half-fare card (150 CHF for one year is the one for you) which will pay itself back after a couple of longer train trips. If you get it immediately, you will save 14 CHF already on the way to St. Gallen. For this you need a passport photo at the counter. Either take new ones in a photobooth at the train station or bring some from Finland. You will also need passport photos for the residence permit application. Also, if you happen to have a car, it can be recommended to drive it to Switzerland as travelling in Central Europe by car is very easy and inexpensive compared to the train tickets. In SG the car is not needed, as everything is so close-by and there is only a very limited number of parking lots in downtown. After arriving in St. Gallen, go to the Housing office for your apartment keys and welcoming package including your monthly rent and deposit payment slips (if you choose to use the services of the housing office). It is located a couple of minutes by foot from the train station. After getting into your apartment you might want to get a local SIM card. The alternatives are Swisscom and Orange which both have decent prepaid opportunities. Buddysystem also provides exchange students with SIM cards with 10 CHF on them during the two orientation weeks as a part of their welcoming package. Two weeks after your arrival you are required to register at the city hall (Rathaus) for your residence permit application. After this visit, you can get your student ID along with your matriculation certificate at the university. Consequently, you will have to go back to Rathaus to show your European health care card so that you won t have to pay for Swiss health insurance. We were not required to show any documents from our insurance companies but it is nevertheless wise to bring also those with you. Furthermore, opening a free Postfinance bank account is a good alternative for taking care of rent payments and it decreases the amount of cash you have to carry with you. In order to open the account, you need to wait for the residence permit, which takes some two weeks from the registration. It is sent to you by mail. Some things to keep in mind Take your skis and ski clothes with you. If you like football take both indoor and outdoor football shoes. The beginning of February is quite warm for a Finnish person, so no other excessive winter clothing was needed in spring at least. As a coffee drinker a proper hedge against the lack of coffee machine is a macchinetta. I also recommend to have a good back bag with you to make your walks to the university, gym and grocery store easier. Furthermore, if you do not already have a credit/debit Mastercard, I recommend to get one to ensure liquidity in all situations. Also remember your online banking access information. A suit was not needed during the exchange, although there was for instance a large career fair where it could have been useful. 4

5 Studies (1/4) Bidding This is basically the only thing that requires real focus before the actual start of your courses in St. Gallen as the success of Bidding determines how much you will get out of the courses at the University of St. Gallen. Your sources of information include the information provided by the university, these travel reports, info sharing with your assigned buddy and talking to whoever you know has been in St. Gallen from our university or perhaps also Hanken. We strongly recommend to use all these sources and to invest time and Excel sheets thinking about your preferences and strategy to mitigate possible risks related to getting too few credits and/or courses you do not want since Aalto has a minimum exchange credit requirement and the usual pace of studying for us is 30 or 24 credits. In bidding every student is assigned 1000 points that should be allocated to courses on three different bidding rounds. After that there are some waiting list rounds for lucky losers. After each round (that last for several days or even for a week), courses are assigned based on the lowest accepted amount of points allocated for that course (Dutch auction). For the next round you will get the excess points back that you bid over that benchmark rate. The most popular courses will be full after the first bidding round. Bidding principles and guidelines to help you beat the market and mitigate risks: If you do not have the course assigned in Bidding, you will not be allowed to participate! Assign all your points including all zero bids already for the first round! Acknowledge the fact that the orientation weeks will be full of events; find time somewhere, it is worth it. Start planning as soon as the course information for the semester is available. There is no such thing as too many courses allocated: you can drop a course until the last weeks of the semester; even so it is encouraged to drop already during Bidding if you are certain that you will not participate in that particular course to give the opportunity to someone else. Language courses (at least German) and German language business courses for exchange students are assigned with a zero bid The biggest threat: Do not choose too many courses and bid some points for them all, you might end up with no courses. To get a rough approximation: a popular bachelor s business course in English requires over 100 but less than 200 points on the first round. For master s courses the bids needed to be a bit higher. In the Serviceportal s Bidding system the figure in parentheses (x/x) means: (places left/total places for exchange students). In general; the less places for exchange students, the more you should bid. Remember to check the amount of ECTS credits of language courses; for instance Deutsch Niveau 1 (C1 level) is only 2 credits for one semester. Do a thorough timetable in Excel etc. to see which courses are overlapping and do not bid for completely overlapping courses in the first round; choose the best one for you. Nevertheless, some courses did not have mandatory presence at the lectures, so partial overlap should be OK if the skipped lectures do not contain for instance presentations or other evaluated case work. Take a careful look at the course Fact sheet of each course for course contents, presentations, classes during semester break, excursions and possible payments related to them (Excursions, even trips to Asia etc.). A word of caution: Student Party evening is on Wednesday, no lectures preferred generally on early Thursday mornings. After the first round take a careful look if someone has dropped the course that seemed to be full right after the round ended! If someone drops a spot, it is free for bidding again. When you think you have enough good non-overlapping courses, still try bidding/selecting in waiting list rounds for possible other course candidates since you might want to drop some classes later on and change to some other course - this is only possible if you have been assigned a spot in bidding. 5

6 Studies (2/4) Courses Informations-, Medien- und Technologiemanagement (IMT), UG, 6 ECTS Language: German Professor: Felix Wortmann Grading: 100% Oral exam for exchange students Exercises: 2h/week This course is particularly suitable for someone who wants to get some challenge with German as a business language. Lectures were mass lectures with local students. I found them quite good and was satisfied with the course. The exam was a relaxed chat with the professor and an assistant about key topics for both halves of the semester. Strategisches Management (SM), UG, 5 ECTS Language: German Professor: Müller-Stewens Günter Grading: 100% closed book exchange student exam, questions in German answers in English or German Exercises: 2h/week (5 times) The course covers a thorough analysis of the St. Gallen strategy framework including other key strategy concepts. The lecturer was very experienced, quite easy to follow and had interesting lectures with various examples. The case study exercise groups were nice and case insights were discussed in an open environment. The exam was quite challenging if you want to answer in German, as there is a time constraint of only 90 minutes. Still, the questions were quite fair. What turned out to be useful when studying for IMT and SM were Uniseminar cards (Uniseminar KarteiKarten or KKarten) that you can buy online and retrieve close to the city center. The cards include a question on the other side and the answer on the other. Thus, it was useful to get written answers to specific questions instead of a picture on slides. International Management, UG, 4 ECTS Professor: Roger Moser Grading: 2x Presentations 30% and closed book exam 70% Market price for the first round in bidding: 120 Enthusiastic, energetic and experienced professor Moser had the best lectures of my exchange period. During the 4h Monday sessions we went through basic strategy concepts and key frameworks and after that focused on what internationalization means in practice for different companies. Market entry strategies, managing local operations and managers other challenges during internationalization process were discussed both through theory and concrete examples in an interactive setting with approximately 30 students and professor. First half of the course was during the first semester half on Mondays and the rest during the second week of the semester break. The exam was fair, the only issue here again was the time constraint. 6

7 Studies (3/4) Management of industrial companies, UG, 4 ECTS Professor: Thomas Friedli Grading: 40% group presentation based on an article and 60% open book exam Market price for the first round in bidding: 60 During the course various aspects and cases related to the challenges of manufacturing companies are discussed, even though the level of the analysis stays at a quite general level. I still liked the course since there were many cases. First part of the course was held during the first half of the semester and the second part during the semester break. We also had a couple of excursions, for instance to the famous IWC Schaffhausen watchmaking company. The exam was open book and fairly easy after preparing a consistent, efficient and printed slide package. Leadership in Disaster Management, UG, 4 ECTS Professor: Dr. Andreas G. Koestler Grading: 10% active participation 90% group project paper. Lectures: 4x 6 hours during the first week of the break. Market price for the first round in bidding: 117 The course focuses on disaster responses, some theory of leadership and plenty of practical experience of the professor is heard during the lectures. During one of the days we were challenged to establish a refugee camp for people and to organize a presentation given some key aspects in only three hours. The paper we had to write afterwards was a fairly straightforward writing and reflecting task. Deutsch Niveau 1 (C1), UG, 2 ECTS for one semester Professor: Elke Breitenfeld Grading: 100% closed book Good German course in a relaxed atmosphere. Suitable for students from Aalto who have been to beruflich and situativ 2 level courses. Consists of articles, discussion and grammar exercises. Interestingly, most of the students at this level were local students that are not native German speakers. Deutsch Obere Mittelstufe (B2), UG, 4 ECTS Professor: Elke Breitenfeld Grading: Oral and written exams This course had also exchange students with poorer German knowledge which slowed the pace but in Elke s lectures there was always a very relaxed atmosphere. Basically the same or lower level as beruflich 2 and situativ 2. Business Law, UG, 4 ECTS Professor: Vito Roberto Exercises: 2h/week (5 times) Grading: 100% open book exam designed for exchange students The course covered the most important parts of Swiss business law but also European law. The open book exam was fair for exchange students. I suggest to bid for this course to ensure enough credits. 7

8 Studies (4/4) Being an entrepreneur Key Aspects and Challenges, UG, 4 ECTS Professor: Michael Gasda & Philipp Sieger Grading: 70% exam, 30% group presentation Market price for the first round in bidding: 224 The course gave very pragmatic aspects of entrepreneurs lives and challenges. The course is suggested for students interested in being an entrepreneur themselves. In general, the course was one of the easiest ones in St. Gallen, and yet relatively interesting. Impact Investing: Redefining the Meaning of Return, G, 3 ECTS Professor: Ernst Kimakowitz Grading: 70% group presentation, 30% group examination paper Lectures: 5x10 hours during a couple of weekends Market price for the first round in bidding: approx. 40 The course focuses on the new phenomenon of impact investing. The students are divided into 3-member groups, which then conduct an individual deep-dive into one impact investing target company, and present their proposal to an imaginary investment committee. Very interesting stuff, I think everybody on the course were fascinated by the subject. Aviation systems, G, 6 ECTS Professor: Andreas Wittmer Grading: 50% extended closed book, 30% group presentation, 20% another group presentation Market price on the third round of bidding: approx. 350 There are only a couple of 6-credit graduate courses in English, and thus they are very popular and hard to get. I managed to get a slot on the course after some people had decided to drop it. I had heard that in 2014 there was no exam (even if there was supposed to be), and that the course was very easy and quite interesting. This year there was an extended closed book exam, which means that you may bring a copy of the book (with no notes on it) with you. The exam was easy once you had the book with you. Otherwise, the professor was very enthusiastic about aviation, and sometimes the teaching was more a storytelling lecture with no structure. All in all it was an interesting course, but you should be a little into aviation when bidding for this course. Small states in international affairs, G, 3 ECTS Professor: Christoph Frei Grading: 60% oral exam, 40% group presentation Market price on the third round of bidding: approx. 70 This course was taught by one of the most well-known professors of the school, and the lectures were very interesting. Moreover, as a Finn it is interesting to understand the special aspects of small nations in international affairs. One of the best courses in St. Gallen, I would say. Strategy as performance, G, 3 ECTS Professor: Markus Reihlen Lectures: 7h/day for 4 days on the break Grading: 50% group presentation, 30% individual essay, 20% active participation Market price on the second round of bidding: approx. 200 A block-seminar course which took place on the second week of the break. A very interesting SIM course, with hard-working students ensured that a finance student like me had a hard time catching up with strategy jargon. Highly suggested for all interested into some strategy related matters with only a limited knowledge in advance. 8

9 Other practicalities and free time Free time and practical information BuddySystem events Going to as many BuddySystem events as possible gives you the opportunity to get to know a lot of students from all over the world. The events were well organized and clearly a lot of effort was used to make the exchange students a close-knit community. With the help of BuddySystem, networking turned out to be one of the most successful parts of the exchange. The events started during the first week and lasted until the end of the semester. These events included for instance fondue night, ski weekend, trip to Luzern, ice skating, get-togethers, bowling and of course the legendary farewell party. Other useful information As Switzerland is so expensive, it might be a good idea to go to Germany every once in a while to buy some cheap meat. However, make sure not to bring too much of food with you as there are some restrictions. Otherwise, Denner, Coop and Migros are good stores in SG. Bars: SG is so small that there are only a handful of clubs. They are very expensive too, unless it is a special evening with student discounts. However there are a lot of bars, and the best way to get to know them is to join the BuddySystem events. Traveling & Skiing Skiing in Switzerland is very expensive, but some of the sites are still worth seeing (e.g. Laax, St. Moritz, Verbier, Zermatt). Austria is so close by that the resorts in the Western part of Austria are actually closer to SG than most of the resorts in Switzerland. Especially St. Anton was popular amongst Scandinavians, as it is relatively cheap and the slopes are good and nightlife superb. Furthermore, Basel, Luzern, Geneva, Zürich and other larger cities are worth seeing. And as Switzerland is so in the middle of Central Europe, one can easily travel to Southern Germany, Northern Italy etc. Highly recommended! Final comments We both enjoyed our stay in SG a lot and would definitely recommend it to other students since we enjoyed the environment, studying, people and other opportunities much more than we disliked the somewhat negative aspects. We learned more German, made very good friends from all over the world, got a very different perspective to the normal course of our studies and simply went out of our comfort zones. We learned that Finnish students compare very well in an international setting. To conclude, exchange was an experience where we got to know ourselves a bit better by getting to know people that are so different. Pros Some key aspects for your consideration Beautiful, small city walking distances Very international university with an excellent reputation Possibility to improve language skills in English and especially in German The Alps! Sports opportunities Small cultural differences compared to Finland Good traveling possibilities due to excellent location Timing of the semester Cons Expensive Bad weather Mixed level of lecturing The weird dialect of Swiss-German Bidding 9