Student Blogs/Jessica in Austria
The University of Vienna is located in Vienna, Austria and was founded in 1365. It just celebrated its 650th birthday this year! It is the oldest German-speaking university in Europe and has over 91,000 students studying there every year.
I chose the University of Vienna because of the good reviews I had read online and for its location in the beautiful city of Vienna. I also knew that they offered courses in English as well as German in a variety of subjects. Being that I am in international student who wants to improve her German skills, while still being able to complete compulsory courses for Carleton University, I believe that it was the perfect place to complete my year abroad.
In first semester, I took a variety of courses that were offered under the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Vienna. These courses were:
Additionally, I’ve also been taking a year-long online compulsory course from Carleton University called BUSI 3700: Cross-Cultural Communication. In total, I took 34 ECTS my first term and I found that this was a nice amount, until exam time came. I found the number of exams I had to be very stressful in comparison to my usual 4 exams at Carleton. I spent numerous hours in the library completing readings and making notes; I was beginning to feel like I lived in there during the month of January.
In my personal opinion, I would recommend every course that I took my first semester at the University of Vienna. For the majority, I really enjoyed what I was learning in class and through the readings. I was also able to continue to improve my presentation skills through numerous presentations that I did during the term and I found this very beneficial. That being said, I did find Supply Chain Management to be difficult because of the large amount of math, which was more than I expected. I really struggled to understand the material because math and I tend to be like oil and water; we don’t really mix! If you enjoy math and are considering a career in Supply Chain Management, then I would highly recommend the course. I learned a lot about the behind the scenes operations of companies that I wouldn’t have known otherwise, like the calculations that are done to forecast demand, the variety of distribution channels and the costs that go along with them.
All-in-all, it was a good first term and once I was finally done all of my exams, I decided to celebrate by travelling for a little while to relax, but more on that in my next blog post!
Until next time!
-Jessica