FINALE!

This is my last post considering this subject, and this blog. 

Today we had our presentation, and I can say, that every group made a really good job, and it was interesting how they thinking about the future. I think our presentation was also good, I tried to be short and clear as our teacher asked us, so I hope I could deliver the job. 

It was a fun experience, and I really like our class, I think we had a good time during the class. I'm going to miss my spanish classmates, I hope we can keep up the communication with each other. 

Thank to everyone for participating, and being open to us, Hungarians! 

Good bye, or to use a better phrase, which indicates that we are going to meet again: Hasta luego!  

Before I go

This is the last class we have, since we gonna have the final presentation next week. We were able to hear one group's presentation, so we could imagine how it should be. Jesús and his group made a good job, congrats to them! 

Last days, so Imma hit the pool :D

The 23rd - a la Jordan

I missed two classes, but I'm back again, and as my classmates told me, I didn't miss anything important.

As this is my 23rd post, I want to dedicate it to the best basketball player ever: Michael Jordan.
Enjoy this highlight video of his carrier.

To write about...hmm

I'm really in a bad situation, I don't know what to reflect about, because these classes we just talking some details about our presentation for like 10 minutes, then we don't really know what to do. 

Actually this class I tried to spend my time usefully, and I searched for answers to my other class' questions. 

By the way it is so crazy, that this half a year is almost over. I can't believe how fast the time can run by us.   

Nothing to do

From now on we don't have to do too much in class, so we used this time to work on our final project. As we don't have any big project, we joined forces with Javier, and we are going to present his work on fluidized bed boilers. We divided the presentation to two parts, I'm speaking about the actual process, while Gergő got the opening of the presentation. 

What happened?

This was just several days ago, but a swear I can not remember what happened in this class. I mean, I was busy with correcting my work, and  finishing Gergő's SWOT analysis, and the time just flew away. The class was already over.

After all, this SWOT analysis is interesting to do, I hope I made it easier to Gergő, to improve his work, and to get a better grade. On the other hand, I still don't think, that this is the best way to evaluate personal tasks, and that this is more suitable for companies, but it is good, that in this university, we get a chance to try out what we've learnt.

Untitled

Now on we have to improve our work based on the SWOT analysis of our classmate. I have to make up for some tasks because of the time a spent away from Spain, but nothing serious. My only problem is, that I lose my attention easily these days in class, and it is sunny outside. I hate to go to school when it is summer time, but I think everyone else is like this.

I can not even write anything else about this class. Although I forgot to mention, that I really liked the presentation with no projected help, just talking, it was rapid, and interesting. I like when people can get my attention, and I don't feel like I have to read what's on the wall.

Back to business

After one week off from school, I'm officialy back. Today was my first class of this subject after missing the last week's three class. I found out, that we had to do a presentation in groups, and everyone presented it today. This way I was left out of this activity of course, but I was paying attantion and there were some pretty good stuff. 

The only presentation, where I lost my attention, was the free mind map one, because I couldn't read the text from far behind. In my opinion the FMM is not a good tool to make a presentation, but I think it was a good choice, because this way we could talk about it, and we saw an example of using it. 

I agree, that powerpoint is a little bit out of fashion, actually I've used prezi for my lab presentation in Hungary, and I think if you have time, and you are creative, you can do a lot of intresting things in it. 

Good to be back in Spain :)

Nothing happens

Today we didn't do anything special. Once again we couldn't fill the test we have to do, which by the way is in spanish. Next time maybe. 

We were talking about the SWOT analysis, which I already know from a management subject from Hungary. In this analysis you have to search for the Strengthes, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a company. In the class we apply it to analyze one of our classmates work. I don't really know what are the opportunities we should find in someones activities, and also how can I say that there are threats from the class, if I don't see everyone's work, just mine and my classmate's? Strength and weakness is ok, but the other two depends on your environment...I don't really understand what should we do with that, but I'm gonna ask the teacher what is in her mind about this...

Something is missing...

Actually more things are missing. First we couldnt do the test our teacher wanted to, because it wasn't available online. So we had to think about situations that happened to us in the past, and where we could solve the situation using an assertive technique. 

One of my situation was when my roommate never cleaned, so I had to talk some sence into him. First I was really aggressive, but during the conversation I realized, that he is a smart guy, and anyways I had no other problem with him, so maybe it would be better to try to explain him the situation, and find a solution together. I think that I was assertive, and it was effective, because after that, he did a really good job cleaning the room. 

There are lots of times when it depends on your mood how you react. I was assertive, because I was in a good mood. Maybe on a worst day, I wouldn't be able to turn my anger into calm argumentative conversation.

We also talked about our assesment in this class. As I have to leave Spain for a week, we talked with Maria José to do it this friday. So I was looking into my work, and I realized that I forgot to write a post about the meeting with Pedro Duque. Now I wont do it, because it was long ago, and I think now it doesn't matter anymore, and actually I can not write a lot about it, because it was too short, and in spanish, so I couldn't understand a lot. But I think, that with this long post, I made it up to the task :D

A youtube day

This time we had to search for videos that fits to assertive techniques. We were devided to groups. I worked with Béla, Carlos, Gergő and Javier. It was not an easy task, because the best way to find good examples if we search in films, series or something like that, but sometimes it's hard to find the exact scene on youtube for example. After all, I didn't really like this activity, although it was fun to work with the guys, but I would like to watch the videos of others, I thought we gonna debate about them as well. Obviously we had no time for that.

Saying No!

In a company a person is often asked to do several tasks parallel. Sometimes we have too much stuff to do and our boss is asking more. If you love to work a lot, it's not a problem, but a normal person gets angry with his/her boss. Usually if you have a good relationship with your boss, then you can easily tell him/her that you don't have time for the new task, or you need more time to do it properly. In some case of course it is not that easy, because in a given situation if you say no, then you can go. 

The main thing is to really know your boundaries, and if you are in the position to say no.

NO!

We were asked to write two blog post this time. One about the class, and a reflection to the activity. I don't really understand this, because in the beggining our teacher said, that she wants our posts to be reflective, and not discribing the class. So now what should I write about a class, where we did an activity, if I cannot talk about the activity? I say -> NOOOOOO!

Assertivity

When we communicate with each other in a workplace, it is really important to respect each other, and debate with arguments instead of attacking our partner with aggressive behaviour. On the other hand, if we are to easy on our employees, then our position as a leader is in danger in no time. Everyone would realize that we are not confident, and they gonna link it to our lack of professional experience. The employees gonna be unmotivated, and behave like they want to, they won't be cooperative with us etc. 

We have to find a way to communicate between being aggressive and being passive. That is being assertive. When you are confident, you can defend your opinion and you can deliver your job on a high level, everybody is gonna respect you, and look at you as a leader. 

What does it mean to be aggressive? Watch this video of an agent, who is highly emotional, and way too aggressive (but really successful as well, because he is good in his job, and that's the most important thing, to be an expert).

Suspended

So yes, we were suspended from the last meeting, because we arrived 15 minutes late, and we had a coffe in our hands.

I understand that our teacher was mad at us, and we both understood that this communicates disrespect if you are late from a meeting, and of course I would never do that if I would work for a company. But give us a break here, I don't think that on erasmus, in Spain it is that big of a deal to be a little late. Of course if it is that important I can understand, and it won't happen again, but sending us out for the first time...I'm not a 5 year old boy, it's not gonna work on me if someone punishes me like this. Actually it wasn't even bad for me, it was bad for my teammates on the presentation activity, because this way they suffered. For this, I am sorry guys (Javier and Gergő).

See you all hopefully on the next class ;)

Presentation skills

Nowadays it is often happening that you have to present something. At your university or at your job. Sometimes it is just for 3-5 person, but it could even be group of 10-30 or more people. If you bore your audience, then it is gonna be a fail for sure.

You can develope skills by practicing, but normally the biggest problem is that you are afraid and nervous. You have to think about the fact, that you are talking to other peoples, they are almost the same as you, not gonna bite you ar anything like that. The most important thing is to know what you are talking about. You seem authentic when you really are an expert of that task. Normally you have to present something of your work, so if you really worked on it, you can not fail.

Of course some person has the talent of talking borned with them. They just know how to act, or what to say. That's natural talent. They don't really have to practice.

By the way "practice". I've promised a video that is truly about practice (now you can check the post before, and now you understand it)

  

E-mails again

On thursday we were finishing our corrections of e-mails. We had to tell the problems to be corrected and write the new version.

The problem for me was, that it always depends on the circumstances how you write an e-Mail and just from a few details it's hard to write it correctly. Besides I think that there are many good way to do it if you describe why you did it that way.

After all I think that I did not upgrade my level of writing with this, but I don't think that  I really needed to improve anyway. ( of course nothing is perfect and there is always room for advance )

If you don't understand this joke, stay tuned for the next post! 

Effectivity in e-mails

This time we had to correct e-mails and write new ones. But first of all, we discussed about this task. 

To be honest, I did not understand why we had to do the e-mail's fileds explenation on FreeMind Map, I think it is pretty clear to university students what is the field "From", or "To". 

In my opinion we should have worked on the body, subject and signature more by discussing about the details of these things. 

When I worked for E.ON in Hungary, I had to write a lot of e-mails, so I practiced this in real work situations. The most important thing is to be clear all the time, to write down all the necessary information, so basically be short, because a lot of people has to focus on several stuff, so they don't want to read a lot. To reach this goal, I think, if you have to share a lot of information, then attach a pdf with the details, and if it is important to someone, then they can open it at any time, saving the trouble of searching for your e-mail.

Secretary day

Secretary for me is someone next to the boss' office, who takes calls and brings coffe and beverages, so it was a bit funny that I was called the secretary. But I understand that this is a bit different role in this class. Actually it was easy, and it is always easier when you have cooperative people in a meeting. I had to do the minute as well later, but before the next class to help Joaquin prepare to be the next secretary. 

After all it was a good experience. Taking notes of everything, paying attention, concentrating. I won't say that I was in the mood of writing the minute, but when you have a job, and have to do a work for an exact date, then you have to do it no matter what (of course it is always a good excuse when you are dying).  

Profile picture

I have no profile picture on the Virtual Campus, because I didn't know, that here it is important. I mean we have no often used website in my university at Hungary, so I wasn't paying any attention to this one, I haven't edited my profile. I'm gonna do it for sure.

Nowadays when you apply for a job the first thing the HR does is cheking out your facebook profile. In my site I only allowed to see my profile picture, my education and work information. Nothing else. I hope that facebook is safe, and I believe that in HR they are too dumb to break into my profile, but if this is the case, and they don't give me jobs because of some pictures, then shame on them.

As everyone else, I also have an opinion about someone if I see his/her profile picture, but it doesn't mean, that I'm not gonna open for he/she. The real first expression is when I see somebody live, using his/her mimics, and his/her style. I think you can have a proper opinion after talking to someone, and it's not too smart not giving anyone a shot just because you don't like his/her picture.

Non-verbal communication

When we are talking about communication, we should know the fact that most impressions we make, are not our words, but our body language and mimics. I read several weeks ago, that nowadays it is changing a lot, because of social networks. The new generations are using it constantly, and when you are talking to other people on the facebook you don't have to use your body to communicate. This way when you communicate in person, you also use it less significantly. In my opinion it's really bad, because i like to read the faces of people. 

In the class we had to analyze other persons picture. For me it was funny, when I asked my spanish classmate to analyze Hungary's prime minister, Orbán Viktor. He said that he is not trust-worthy, and on a picture he was like a dictator. If you read news about hungarian politics, you gonna find this really funny.

Space

In this class we talked about Pedro Duque who is an astronaut from Spain. I've never heard about him before. For me the most interesting part would be his training to go outerspace, but it is the same for every astronaut, this way it's not really a specialty connected to him.  

I think every child wants to go to the "sky", so do I. It has to be a good experience without gravity. On the other hand, for me it sounds more interesting to land on another planet rather then doing some engineering work on a space station.  

When it comes to astronauts, the Axe Apollo commercial always comes to my mind. If you have never seen this commercial, it's for you:

Creativity

This is a word that often used when it comes to writing, dancing, painting etc. It is the same with 'art'. But in my opinion both of those words are more general. I mean you can be an artist with the numbers as well, or you can make a show with physics, that attracts people more than a movie. Of course if you are really good at it. Creativity is also linked with a lot of things.

I think that the problem with the school system is not that it highlights the subjects what is important for the society. Maybe it is also true a little bit, but for me the biggest concern is the way of teaching. Simply it's not fun. To maintain a child's creativity, professors have to be creative as well. More entertaining classes makes learning new things easier, at least for me this is the case. 

For example in Hungary at my University I often find myself thinking about other stuff, staring out of the window, because I'd lost all my intrest in that subject. 

The best example for the responsibility of the teachers is when I had a calculus exam, but I missed all the classes, because they were sooo boring. Then someone told me, that there is another teacher, a PhD student, who is really good. So before the exam (literally before, I think the class was 8 hours before the exam) I went to that class without any preparations. I was absolutely sure that I would not make that exam. It was really fast, because the guy had 2 hours to tell us as much as he could. When it was over, I was like 'ok, I think I am ready'. After all, my exam was graded around 80%. And it wasn't basic calculus, it was calculus 3.

So please theachers, don't be boring, be effective and crative! :)

p.s.: "earth without art, is just eh"

Introductions and a short one

The first lesson was a bit strange for me. I'm not talking about introducing each other. I am talking about the level of english of the students. Of course I was the only erasmus student in the group just like my basketball class full of spanish guys and two of us from Hungary. My overall opinion is that spanish people don't really have a good level of english (in my basketball class literally no one could make a proper sentence in english). Fortunatelly that's not the case here, because everyone has an acceptable english or better. After all I'm glad that my class is full of spanish people. This way I can have spanish friends easier.

For me, the second class was a little bit shorter (ok i admit that it was an hour shorter), but Bosco explained me what is the secretary and what is the minute of the class, so I hope I didn't miss anything important.  

This class is a lot different from what I've seen in Hungary before, so I'm looking forward to be in these meetings.

The first

Hola!

This blog is created to communicate our ideas and thoughts with each other about the course meetings mentioned in the discription.

I'm János Gönczi from Hungary. I'm on Erasmus here in Spain. In Hungary I study electric engineering, and I am on my Master's degree. I decided to come to Spain for a semester, because I like the attitude and lifestyle, and of course the language and the weather of this country.

This first post is also for testing the blog, getting familiar with it.

You should watch this video, and share your thoughts about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy0HNWto0UY