Report January - Business and Engineering

January, Responsibilities

In my opinion January must be the most intense and important moment of all the winter semester. This is the time when a lot of responsibilities from different areas come along, and your time management and commitment will determine how successful the semester was.

The first thing in the priority list are the studies. In this month, professors usually give useful hints about the examinations and make model tests. It’s important to assist those classes and also to take advantage of the extra tutorials in order to finish understanding concepts and moving forward. It’s unlikely for one person to finish studying all the topics of all classes, so I personally advice to make a list of the subjects with each topic and figure out how advance are your studies and how confident you feel. Speak with the professors and try to determine together in wich points and exercises to focus in order to have better chances for the exam. After making this, you’ll be more likely to know wich topic to leave, or in some cases wich exams to miss, but more important you’ll have a wider idea on how to manage your time.

Another important task, that some people won’t have to worry about, is the search for a new place to live. Many students arrived the first semester living at student residences or some temporary shared apartments. In some cases, it’s possible to extend the contract indefinitely, but I surely recommend taking a look for the new rental availability in the city. In the summer semester there won’t be coming new full-time student (only exchange students, and they’ll mostly go to the Florian-Geyer residence), and also many students will be leaving the city since they’ve finished the studies. This creates a new big offer of places to rent, in better locations and with better prices. Unfortunately, the timing for the search collides with the study one. It is exhausting to contact the advertisements and plan meetings. It’ll happens too that many times the landlords are searching for a different profile and won’t accept you. But if you insist and have patient, finding a much better place is guaranteed. During this time, when the ends of the contracts are approaching, the amount of new properties posted in the web is incredible, so don’t miss the chance. An important thing to add, is that mostly all contact with the rental offices and private landlords must be in German language, so if you don’t have an average level yet, try to go to the meetings with friends that speak German, or try to make them do the calls. This will make things easier and faster, and you’ll more probably be considered for the selection. 

In top of these two big responsibilities, you’ll have to manage too your personal and social life, your job and your contact with the ones that are far away. This is the why I make such a big deal about time management, spending more time in something produce less time for other. I’ve noticed that several people expressed some kind of “home sickness” during this trial. I must say that I’ve felt it myself. I believe this happens because under pressure we are not surrounded by our loved ones to give us support and motivation. My only logic advice would be to keep in contact with them, but sometimes I feel that this doing, doesn’t fill the void.