snigel50plus

I believe that there are different reasons for doing an exchange. Just like last time I wanted to study in English and get out of my comfort zone. This time though it is less about experiencing another culture (even though I am, but if this was ma main goal I would have had to go outside of Europe or outside of the Nordic countries at least) and more about being able to take interesting courses, different, from the ones in Linköping. My classes ARE really interesting but so far this semester I feel like that have been taking up to much time. Exchange studies are also about making new friends and trying new things. I still have a lot of stuff on my list of things that I would like to do while in Finland!

This is new. My final grade for my math class is going to be partially based on practice problems performance. In other words, I will not be given the correct answers as I am used to. I will have to hand in my exercises and the teacher will correct them. This has not happened since Epiphany, New Bern, NC and before that I do not know when? Feels like I am back in elementary school. What about personal responsibillity? I am learning it for myself!

Dispite studying more than 100% this second half of the semester I only have one exam. Somehow I managed to pick courses without exams. It probably explains all the essays I have written instead. However, this one exam is in User Interface Construction, a course where I have missed a large part of the lectures due to schedule conflicts. What also should be added is that it is pretty obvious that I am lacking at least one prerequisite in programming. In other words this exam will be quite a challenge. Therefore I decided to start study fot it today. So far I have mainly encounters abbreviations in my notes which does not make sense. What's up with Computor Science people IDE? SDK? GUI(OK, I do know this one - Graphical User Interface), WIMP? UML? BNF? UAN? TAG? WAI? ACM? The list is long. I am hoping that Google can help me sort things out tonight.

Today I have my first exam at Aalto University. I am equally afraid of finding the location of the exam as for the exam content itself. Also, what should I bring? Student ID and a pen off course but can I bring coffee? Where do I put my coat, keys, wallet? It is probably for the best to bring as little as possible. Hm.. I just realized that I might have been handed an exam guide during the orientation week. Lets see if I can find it.

The exam I have today is in Knowledge and Competence Management. It is about how we store and share knowledge with each other, within and between organizations. It is quite interesting. Most of the course material seems pretty straight forward, so to some extent it feels like one is over analyzing the obvious. At the same time by mapping how information is transfered you are aware of where obstacles might occur, and thereby able to avoid them.

Right now I am doing some last minute studying about social presence. Due to how we human are biologically design we are most susceptible to face-to-face communication. In such a situation we can interpret co-location, syncronity, body language, facial expressions and speech. Therefore it is useful to endeavor social presence. Social presence does not have to mean physical presence, the importance lies in the feeling of the other person being present. There are different levels of social presence. In the bottom of the scale are for example flyers or bulletins. A video conference gives a high social presence, a phone call or a letter an intermediate one.

 

As an exchange student I am grateful for the high social presence I experience during a Skype call. Studying abrod would have been a much tougher decision without knowing that I would be able to maintain a high level of social precence with family and friends.

My dad's choice of tv show is beneath contempt. The other day when it was raining, he started to watch The Bachelor Pad around noon and pretty much kept watching until midnight. The Bachelor Pad is like the Bachelor and The Bachelorette combined. Come on Dad, seriously!?