UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER. Fall 2015 Travel report

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1 UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER Fall 2015 Travel report

2 I had my undergraduate exchange semester in Manchester starting from September This report summarizes my experiences and the main practicalities that might be useful for the next exchange students going to England and especially to Manchester. Manchester is about same size than Helsinki and the city is full of students. And football fans of course. The choice of Manchester as my exchange destination was perfect for me and you can find many things to do considering your own interests and desires. It is also quite short distance away from many other nice cities in UK that are worth of visiting. Preparing for the exchange Before exchange After Aalto University s approval for the exchange, the process and paper work were quite easy to do. International offices both from Aalto and University of Manchester ed useful information and required forms to fill up before leaving. At first I needed to send the incoming exchange student application to the host university and after that wait for the course choice list and accommodation information. Erasmus required exchange students to take the language test before the exchange (and after as well) as a compulsory part to get the Erasmus money. It didn t affect anything but their own records and it was actually nice to know how the result changed after my semester abroad. Getting an apartment Before summer I applied for the university accommodation. You should do this as soon as possible because they start to give the rooms immediately. I received a confirmation of my accommodation, Weston Hall in the City campus, on June. All my exchange friends weren t lucky to get a university accommodation and they rent a shared house from private market. The rent was pretty much the same but it was just easier to take the accommodation that university was providing. However unfortunately they didn t place exchange students in the same flat so at university hall you need to be prepared to live with 18- year old British freshers who have just started the Uni. Travelling to Manchester There are straight flights from Helsinki to Manchester. The University arranged free bus transportation from the airport to the university accommodations. That needed to be booked in advance online. There were quite much people on my arriving day waiting for the bus and I had to wait more than an hour in the airport but I preferred that instead of taking a taxi and pay it myself. 2

3 Exchange studies Terms timetable The term started in the end of September with an orientation week and welcome lectures. Manchester Business School (MBS) had separate orientation and welcome packages than the other university. Courses had been selected already during the summer and they started after the welcome week. All the courses took the whole semester and there was a reading week on November when no lectures and teaching were held. It was meant for studying and catching up with all the topics but it was also a good chance to take a trip somewhere and relax. After reading week the lectures and workshops were on until December 18 th. The exam period took place only after Christmas break, the last two weeks on January. I went home for Christmas and then came back to Manchester on January to read for all my five exams. There was also an opportunity for exchange students to take the special assessment and write essays instead of exams if the student didn t stay in Manchester for the exam period on January. I decided to go back to take the exams and skip my first period in Aalto University starting on January. At first, five exams felt too much to handle but after three weeks of reading on January I found it actually better choice than spending all the time with the assignments on December instead. I also learnt more when I didn t just write bad essays to pass the course. Course overview Erasmus requires 30 ECT from the exchange semester, which means 6 courses. Below I briefly introduce the courses I chose. Usually all the courses had one lecture (one or two hours) a week and in addition few of them had one hour seminar/workshop every week or every other week. Seminar attendance was compulsory and groups were smaller but lectures were bigger so attendance was not monitored. I think the course offering was good and I found easily courses that I was interested in. Some of the students did lot of studying during the semester before the lectures but I didn t feel it useful so I left more for January when the lectures were over and I had time to read for my exams. Also there weren t so much pressure to study too hard because the grades didn t matter, exchange students need to only pass the courses. But for just passing the course you actually needed to know quite well the topics so don t trust too much for that issue. It s not easy to get good grades in UK so I didn t want to take the risk to fail my courses and not get the credits. 3

4 e- Business and e- Marketing (5 ECT) Course code: BMAN20471 Level: Undergraduate, 2 nd year Evaluation: 100% Exam (or one term exchange students: essay) Lecturer: Pedro Sampaio The course handled current topics of digitalization and new e- business models. For me it was very useful and interesting to learn. My other course, Introduction to business information systems, was supporting this course well by creating the framework of concepts and terms that are used in information systems. Going for the lectures was not too attempting every Monday evening but when I had studied the topic more, I actually became more interested of cloud computing and future IT solutions. There were no seminars or group works during the semester so assessment was based on the exam. The exam was surprisingly hard compared to other courses because you had to write many shorter answers (i.e. know many topics well) instead of only two essays out of six options. International Business (5 ECT) Course code: BMAN24121 Level: Undergraduate, 2 nd year Evaluation: 100% Exam (or one term exchange students: essay) Lecturer: Axèle Giroud Overall the course was very useful and I would almost recommend it to be compulsory for all business students. We had four seminars in total where we discussed and solved some problems when doing business in the international scene. Seminars weren t the best output from the course but they didn t take too much time. The course book and lecture topics were structured quite well and gave good overview to the global integration and institutions, international trade and investments as well as global strategies. The evaluation was based 100 % for the exam and the preparation for the seminars didn t take much effort. This was very popular course among exchange students and the course consisted of very multicultural group of students all around the world. Management of Projects (5 ECT) Course code: BMAN22061 Level: Undergraduate, 2 nd year Evaluation: 50% Group project, 50% Exam (or one term exchange students: essay) Lecturer: Eunice Maytorena In this course we had to create and plan our own project in groups of five people. Lectures were a bit disordered; sometimes the red line was hard to find when the focus was only on 4

5 our project and it was hard for the lecturer to get the attention of students. The lecturer was kind and young woman but she got very frustrated to the group and it felt that she lost her interest to teach us in the end of semester. At first it took a lot of time to meet with the group and figure out what we should do. However finally I liked to work with my exchange group instead of working only by myself and I got good friends while planning our project. But after all I would make some changes to the course structure and lectures before taking this course again. It took also more work compared to other courses because the group work was only 50 % of the assessment and we needed to take the exam on top of that on January. Exam wasn t too bad though and didn t require as much studying as other courses. Introduction to Business Information Systems (5 ECT) Course code: BMAN21061 Level: Undergraduate, 2 nd year Evaluation: 100% Exam (or one term exchange students: essay) Lecturers: Heba El- Sayed and Mike Newman This course was worth of taking for me. Because I hadn t studied before any business technology or information systems on my bachelor degree, it gave me very good introduction of what it is all about. There were two parts in the course led by different lecturers who were both OK. In addition we had four seminars, which were basically waste of time, but it took only four hours out of our lives. I would recommend this course for students who are interested of new digital era and topics related to big data, computerization, green computing etc. and haven t studied business technology or similar topics before. The Business of Healthcare (5 ECT) Course code: BMAN31781 Level: Undergraduate, 3 rd year Evaluation: 50% Reflective journal, 50% Group presentation (no exams) Lecturer: Elaine Clark This course was the best one I had. The lecturer was very nice and keen to the topic for real. We had to write a reflective journal every week based on the lectures and seminars. I realised it was in fact supporting my own learning very well so it wasn t too bad to do. This was the only course which didn t have an exam in the end but group presentation instead. Also we had a one- hour seminar every week for smaller group of students, where we discussed the current topics and made some short presentations about those. You can possibly pass this course quite easily but it s worth of doing some reading and studying because this course is something that you can t take in Aalto and it gives great perspective of UK healthcare compared to Finland. 5

6 The Economics of Sport (5 ECT) Course code: BMAN31391 Level: Undergraduate, 3 rd year Evaluation: 25% Essay, 75% Exam (or one term exchange students, 100% Essay) Lecturer: Terry Robinson Like The business of healthcare, this course is unique offering in University of Manchester. At the beginning I felt quite confused though because the course was all about football. If you are a big football fan and know the basic of economics, this course is definitely for you. The focus is 80 % for the football business. However I don t regret taking this course because now I have learnt very much about the football field and economics behind the player s salary, talent distribution in different clubs and reasons behind prize money in individual sports. The assessment was more favourable for exchange students because they only had to write 500 words more for the essay that was compulsory for all the other students too. In addition, normal students (like me as I took the exams) had to do the exam on January as well. But finally reading for the exam wasn t that big effort for this course and exam was fine if you only knew and studied few topics well. We had seminars every week and exercises to prepare for them. In seminars we were split into pairs and discussed one of the questions before giving our answer and opinions to others. I think these weekly seminars were the reason why the reading for the exam wasn t so hard because that way I divided my studying for the whole semester instead of only January. The seminars were very calm and relaxed sessions where you didn t have to know the right answer right away and lecturer helped to understand the topics and graphs. Free time and other information Living in Manchester 6

7 Trafford shopping centre Cost of living Cost of living in Manchester was pretty much on the same level than in Helsinki. However the accommodation was really expensive, with the bad exchange rate to pounds, it took almost 800 euros per month (in a flat with 8 people). The university accommodation rent was on the same level than private housing. Food might have been partly cheaper in a grocery store (especially after finding Lidl) but eating out at restaurants and cafes was quite similar. Even though a nice eggs benedict breakfast plate might have cost 15 pounds (around 20 ) I visited many cafes and restaurants with my friends and enjoyed the local café (and tea!) culture. There were an area called Northern Quarter, which was full of cosy food places and pubs for either morning breakfast, lunch and tea time treats or evening hang outs. Also it is worth to read Tripadvisor and other traveller sites, because there are many great places out of the city area as well! At the campus area there are cafeterias and cafes where lunch can be bought or you can eat your own food. The student lunch system is different than in Finland and cheap, proper meals are quite rare. International Society has every day changing warm lunch, which cost about 4-6 pounds. You can find cheaper soup of the day or Subway student lunches by around 2,50. There are also few salad buffets and then of course fish and chips, sandwiches, crisps The offering between cafeterias differs so I recommend visiting different places. It was very 7

8 common to take own lunch snacks and eat it in the library or café areas. I usually did my own sandwich as well and cooked good dinner in the evening at my hall. In UK the throwaway culture is much bigger than in Finland. For one- semester exchange students, cheap chains like Poundland (where you can find almost everything from kitchen staff to soap) were useful because almost everything needed to be bought for living can be found from there. I didn t mind the bad quality because I spent there so little time but it felt bad to throw things away (without recycling). I shared my pots, pans and tableware with the exchange student in my flat and gave it then for the exchange student coming there after me. There are also possibilities to do cloth shopping cheaper than in Finland (like cheap Primark) but at the same time spend more money for better quality. The price reflects the quality and there are both the same chains than in elsewhere Europe and the special UK brands and stores. For example I found sport clothes with good price- quality ratio. I didn t purchase any course books, because some of them were available online and some of them I borrowed from the library. And because those are really expensive like in Finland. The book for International Business for instance was high demand book in the library so you were able to have it only for one night loan. I was lucky to manage to borrow it from my friend who had bought it and written her essay already when I read for the exam. Transportation My hall was minutes walking distance from campus and city centre. I barely used public transportation. Some of my friends bought the travel card but it was quite expensive. There were free bus lines for students from some accommodations to the campus and so on to the city centre. However sometimes the queue to the bus stop was really long so it wasn t worth of waiting the bus. I would say the distances weren t too long to walk but in the rainy weather it wasn t so pleasant every time. Weather Unfortunately the weather in Manchester in the fall isn t very flattering. But the start of the semester was extraordinarily warm and sunny. It lasted a long time and people were really happy about that. However then before Christmas it got very dark and rainy even though the temperature was still really warm. I think I used my winter jacket before Christmas only during two weekends. Luckily the amount of the rain is not much and usually you ll do fine even without umbrella. The thing is, it rains almost every day at some point of the day. 8

9 Culture British culture is different from Finland but the living standards and quality of life is on good European level. People are more open and friendly to strangers. I liked the polite and warm way of communication e.g. by or in every day life. University campus is full of international students and I got to know exchange and other international students as well as local British students. Also the range of cafés and restaurants is very wide and they say that you can find food from every corner of the world. You won t get lack of options. Manchester is known as a football city too. I really recommend going and watching at least one match while in Manchester. The Champions League tickets can be bought very cheap from Student s Union if you act fast at the right time. Student free time Almost everyone had one day of week free from Uni and luckily I had Fridays free. Studies took time from free time of course but there were still much time to meet new friends, do sports and go for example to the cinema after a Uni day. University offers many clubs that can be joined. We had a fresher s fair in the orientation week where all the clubs presented themselves. I joined few sport clubs and really enjoyed those and got some good local friends. There were some arranged activities for MBS students but it was mainly pub- crawls or things like that so we decided to do our own activities and trips among exchange students who did want to explore the whole city and country in a short time. All universities in Manchester have a common International Society that arranged international evenings and many trips around England. I didn t join the society but some of my friends did. I preferred to take the trips with our own group of people and plans. 9

10 Beautiful Peak District Travelling In the early Fall I travelled almost every weekend. I found people who liked hiking, so few times we borrowed a car and travelled to beautiful Peak District and to the highest peak in UK, Snowdown. It was absolutely amazing place. Also I bought railcard, which cost around 30 per year, but it gave discounts from off- peak train tickets so I counted that it was worth for me. Train tickets are good to book as early as possible because they get more expensive. In UK there are many places worth to visit and that s why I stayed in Great Britain for the whole exchange. My favourite place was Scotland. Historical streets and castle are something different than modern and crowded streets in Manchester. Many cities can be visited in one day but Scotland is farther so it s good to stay there one or two nights. The place is full of cheap hostels and everything is in walking distance. Also Ireland is only from less than one- hour flight away and you can find very cheap flight tickets and go there for one weekend to visit Guinness museum and Irish pubs. 10

11 Final Comments I enjoyed Manchester very much. The culture was different but not too far from what European countries are like. Manchester had beautiful, old and Harry Pottery- like buildings as well as very modern and new buildings. Also if you need activities you won t get bored in Manchester. You can do sports you like, go see musicals or theatre shows, visit big shopping centres, museums or just travel to the neighbour city There are too many food places to visit as well as tourist attractions. And it s not more than 2 hours away from London by train. I had useful courses and I learnt new business topics and working with multinational team. University of Manchester is appreciated and the exchange period wasn t only having fun exchange but also widening the business perspective to more international way that I couldn t experience in Finland. In addition of course I had fun time spending half- a- year holiday and now I have friends around the world to visit! The one heavy reason why I recommend Manchester is however the language. I really enjoyed the British accent that people used and the fact that you are understood everywhere. You don t have to be afraid of understanding the talk of lecturers even though all of them are not native speakers. Your language skills will definitely move for next level without noticing and probably you will get dilemma whether to say water with a t or d. 11