Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Courses


My Courses in Profile:

 

At St. Edward’s you have the choice between so many courses. There are majors in “The Bill Munday School of Business”, in the “School of Behavioral and Social Sciences”, the “School of Natural Sciences”, the “School of Humanities” and the “School of Education”.
In this blog post I want to introduce the courses I am taking at St. Edward’s, but if you want some information about other courses, you can easily find them at this page.


Business Statistics:

Business Statistics is a really interesting and useful 3-hour course, if you want to become an accountant or want any other job related to mathematics and statistics. You learn a lot of useful formulas and equitation’s, that won’t just make your other math courses easier, but it also gives you advantages for your future job.
I am having this course two times a week for one hour and fifteen minutes. 
Your grade consists of a Homework part and an Exam Part. During the Semester you will have to submit 12 Homework's and you will be writing 4 Exams. 
These are some of the Learning Objectives stated in the Syllabus:

1. Obtain an appreciation for the breadth of statistical applications in business and economics.
2. Learn about the sources of data for statistical analysis both internal and external to the firm.
3. Know the meaning of descriptive statistics and statistical inference.
4. Learn how to construct and interpret both tabular and graphical summarization procedures for qualitative and quantitative data.
5. Understand how z scores are computed and how the empirical rule is used [...]
6. Understand the importance of sampling and how results from samples can be used [...]
7. Know what sample random sampling is and how simple random samples are selected.  
8. Know the Central Limit Theorem and the important role it plays in sampling. 
9. Learn how to formulate and test hypotheses about a population mean and proportion. 

I really enjoyed attending this course, simple because I actually enjoy doing math and also because you learn a lot of useful stuff for your future job. You know how to calculated, interpret and use important data for your company and what impact it will have. 


Business Communication:

The Business Communication course is a 3-hour class which emphasizes how important it is in a job to communicate with your colleagues in a proper and productive way and how to do that. But it's also a really good course to prepare you for tasks that come up with applying for a job and for tasks that definitely will come up during your job.  
Depending on which course you are getting into, you can either have the course once every two weeks for three hours or twice every week for one hour thirty minutes. 
I had it every two weeks and I think this model was very convenient to do the homework on the weeks off. 

In class we also had plenty guest lecturers with really interesting presentations and activities to develop your knowledge in business communication.
To enhance your chances in applying successfully for a new job we had to improve our job application portfolio and our LinkedIn profile as a homework. We got important tips how to improve both and how we can represent ourselves in a proper way in this class.
Another important aspect of this course was not just the preparation for the work we will have to do before the job but the work we have to do in the job as well. So we also had to practise writing business emails and statements, the biggest project was a group work that includes a presentation and a business proposal. The course was a good opportunity to practice and enhance business related activities and if you have some difficulties in this tasks I highly recommend attending this course.  


Intercultural Communication:

Another good communication course I am attending is Intercultural Communication. It's a 3-hour class with two classes every week. 

In this class you learn why society is the way it is today. You learn about and how language evolved and affected every part of our life and how it developed our culture.  You learn something about other cultures and why diversity is so important, even in world of globalization.
You learn about what constrains culture and what threatens cultures.
You amplify your view of the world and your place in it and what I especially liked about this course is that class discussions are welcome. You can share opinions and questions that are related to the course and discuss about in class which makes this course so interesting and one of my favorites.

To challenge everything, you have learned there are several quizzes and test about the content of the course.


Spanish I:

The Spanish I course is a beginner course. It's a 3-hour course with three fifty minutes' classes during the week. For me it was understood that I would learn a new language at St. Ed's and with Spanish, I found one of the world most common languages I'd have to learn.

The focus in this course is to speak the language. So during class you have to speak Spanish at least once every class. Also you have to do homework on every day of class, so three homework's every week. I liked that, because that's the way to remember everything you did in class and to strengthen what you have learned.

The things you have learned in class are challenged on several ways, but there are always preparation courses online before every bigger test. During the semester you will have to answer several quizzes and bigger exams, but there are also two oral interviews to challenge your oral skills in pronunciation and vocabulary and you will have to do two big compositions as well.


Digital Media & Analytics:

The Digital Media & Analytics course is a 3-hour course and is the course where I had to do the most work. You'll have it two times a week for one hour and fifteen minutes. Even though that this was the course where I had to put in my most effort, I highly recommend this course! I have learned the most out of this course and if you want to gain knowledge in Digital Media there is no way you want to miss this course! It's also not just useful for people interested in Digital Media or Marketing but it's also very useful for entrepreneurs who want to know how to advertise their future company.
The course is described as followed in the Syllabus:

"Introduces a paradigm of dynamically and directly interacting with customers through digital means by providing a framework and tools for managing and analyzing an organization's virtual presence for marketing purposes. Applies concepts of digital marketing in practice through applicable projects and assignments. Students are given the opportunity to experience and analyze the effects of creating, promoting, and adapting an online identity for a marketing, entrepreneurial or digital media organization."

Also here are some of the course objectives:
1. [...] examine the organization's ability to use both on- and offline strategies to promote their product [...]
2. [...] evaluate performance metrics and make recommendations for changes. 
3. [...] evaluate the company's use of critical strategies of direct marketing, and other tools such as email marketing [...]
4. [...] evaluate the company's individual's presence on paid and organic search and public social media platforms.

In this course I have learned how to create a blog, I have learned how to use Google Analytics and how to interpret the data gained by this program. Also I have learned how to set up email marketing campaigns and how to promote your form of web presence. You constantly have to report on your progress you have made by finishing these tasks and the weekly quizzes strengthen your knowledge in what you have learned. This knowledge is essential for the HubSpot and Google AdWords certification you have to do in the course. All in all this course teaches you a lot of useful information and the certifications you will get by taking this course will also be a benefit for future applications and jobs. 

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Introducing the Longhorns

The Longhorns

"The Longhorns" is the name for the sports teams of the University of Texas.
As you can imagine, their mascot is a bull, which is also typically for Texas.

When you are in Austin you also have to watch one of their games.
I was especially interest in football and even though I was a complete greenhorn in this sport,
I really had a lot of fun watching the game!




The game against the team of El Paso was great!
You also have to join one of the tailgates hours before the actual game.
People are gathering on the parking lots in front of the stadium.
There they are partying, eating and watching the game if their not having a ticket.

Ticket prices variate from $30 - $160, depending on where you want so sit.

You can also look up the schedule of all sports teams of the UT at this link.



Introducing ACL

ACL - Austin City Limits

Depending on how long you will stay at St. Edward's or in which semester you will be studying here, you will have the chance to join the ACL Festival.

Its on of the biggest Music Festivals all over the US.
Every year it is visited by thousands of people celebrating and enjoying music.

Typically its held on two following weekends around September and October.
In 2016 it started at the last weekend of September, which started at the 30th and ended at the 9th October.

Some major headliners this year were Die Antwoord, Major Lazer, Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead, Kygo, The Chainsmokers, Mumford & Sons and many more.

Its a MUST visit when you are here:



Introducing Barton Springs Pool

Barton Springs Pool

The Barton Springs Pool is the number one spot of the town to cool down on a hot day.
So literally almost every day.

Its central location in Austin makes it easy to access for everybody.
From Campus it's either a 20-30 minutes ride by bike or a 30-40 minute ride by bus.

If you take the bus make sure that you know where to take which bus line to arrive at the right location. An easy why to do this is to look up the connections on google maps.

I would not recommend going by car because on some days, depending on how hot it is, you will not find a parking spot, but of course Fasten or RideAustin is an alternative.

This video is a nice visual discription of what to do at Barton Springs and what it will look like:

 All credit to "TheDayTripperTV"

Another nice video with some roadtrip impressions can be found here.

Introducing Austin

Austin, the Place to be.

In the next couple of Blogposts I want to introduce you to Austin.

I want to show you why this place is so special and why you should not only join St. Edward's,
but also its community around it.

Austin is not onlyhaving the convenience of a town but also natural beauty and recreation, as well as some of the kindest people in the US.

I want to show you why this is the place where you want to be!

I start the series by showing you this little introduction video:

 
All credit to "McGinley Group - KW Realty"

For more impressions klick here and here

Restaurants 3

Restaurants Around Campus

3. Opal Divine's Penn Field

Opal Divine's is a nice restaurant within 7 minutes walking distance and is located on 3601 S Congress Ave. It's offering some specials on each weekday and St. Edward's students even get a little discount on everything Opal Divine is offering on their menu.
They have a great menu for food and for different drinks and beers as well ;)

Here you can have a look at their menu and their place.
They also have a nice outdoor area and occasioally they have bands playing on their outdoor stage!

The Opal Divine's Penn Field Outdoor Stage.

But there are many more places on South Congress, more than I could test! 
Enjoy visiting and trying out the restaurants and find your favorite place!

Restaurants 2

Restaurants Around Campus

2. Magnolia Café


The Magnolia Café is a 24h diner and it's located on 1920 S Congress Ave.

It's withing 20 minutes walking distance and a perfect place to have a great meal at any time!

The Café has a charming atmosphere and the food is great! You can get everything from pancakes to pasta and quesedillas.

When you are there you should also have a look at their daily specials, in general there is a little discount on it and it may help you decide faster on what to eat.


Just keep in mind that especially on weekend mornings you probably will have to wait in line to get seated. If you want to have a look ate the menu you can find it on their homepage.
The charming Magnolia Café interior, the pictures on the wall can be purchased!