First Month and Winter Symposium

I've been here for one month, and it seems to have flown by. I can't believe I'll be going home in just four more months! To me, this is a sign that I've felt comfortable in Latvia, and when thinking back over the first month it's hard to point out any huge culture shock I had. The culture here is certainly different than anywhere in the U.S., but everyone I've met here has treated me well and helped me to feel at home.

Since my last post, a lot has occurred. Saturday, January 22, I moved into my new flat with Valentin and Ivan. We spent the first few nights without internet, but I didn't mind too much because the school is so close. I'm very glad we made this move, as the flat is much more convenient than the dorms. Our flat is about a 2 minute walk to the school and a 10-15 minute walk to the Old Town. This is compared to a 10 minute walk from the dorms to the nearest bus stop, a 20-30 minute bus ride, and another 10-15 minute walk to the school. Being close to the school has allowed me to explore more of the city, and I've spent time with more students hanging out at their flats, which are all close by. A few pictures are below: the main room, the kitchen, part of my bedroom, and the view from the balcony leading off of my room.





After we moved into the flat, we didn't have time for much else than studying. Just last Monday, I took my first final. It wasn't too difficult, but it was long (we were given 3 hours) and covered the amount of material a course usually covers over a whole semester. In some ways this made the exam easier, as most of the material was still fresh in my mind, but in other ways the sheer volume of material we learned compared to the small number of lectures we had made it more difficult. During Tuesday-Thursday I didn't have any class, but I had a large project using WebGPSS that was part of a ten page report due Friday, so I was still constantly at the school. Between finishing my final and working on the project, I managed to find time to celebrate the end of the final with a group of students, finish my temporary residence permit application (finally) at the immigration office, and attended a Riga hockey game with some of the other exchange students and all of the compadres. Below is a picture of Valentin (my roommate from Germany on the right), Ivan (my roommate from France in the middle), and Rihards (one of our friends who helped us find the flat) at the game.



Friday after submitting my final project early in the morning, my next class started, which involves each group (this time 4-5 students per group) working with a company and writing a report on it's management structure and business initiative. I will meet with my group tomorrow to discuss which company we will study, but I believe they have already contacted one who has agreed to work with us and it is a Latvian company. Hopefully some of our interviews (we have to have 5-10) will be in English so I can be very involved in the process. After our first lecture, I left for Winter Symposium with Gerard and two other students from the dorms named Mindaugus and Thomas.

Winter Symposium is held by SSE every year and consists of staying in a guesthouse for a night with other students near a lake somewhere in Latvia. Students were scheduled to arrive Saturday, with games being held during the morning, and then head to the Zagarkalns Mountains for a day of skiing or snowboarding. I left on Friday because I had found a ride with Gerard a few weeks before and he was in charge of setting it up and running the event. We were allowed to stay there Friday night for free, and only paid 8 Ls (about $16) for Saturday night. It was a good turnout, with about 25 students showing up for the games, many more showing up for skiing, and about 35-40 total staying the night. Some of the Year 2 students who were there I already knew from soccer each week, and so it was easy to talk to all of the students. Ivan and Valentin also went up on Saturday. I had a terrific time skiing, and that night awards were given for the morning games and a small party was held. Once I upload pictures from this weekend, I will post a few to the blog and the rest to Facebook.

Also during the last two weeks, I signed up for a few international business competitions with Gerard and two other students (they are for teams of four), in which we will compete in late March or late early May depending on which ones we qualify for. One is SSE's very own Peak Time, a competition that usually hosts about 2,500 students from all over the world. We also applied for a competition in Germany and one in Lithuania, and since my other teammates are from Lithuania that trip would be expense free (as far as where I would stay and probably meals). We have decided that, in the case that we qualify for the competition in Germany, we will go as long as we find reasonable airfare and lodgings for the weekend. However, Gerard believes that SSE may fund a team if they qualify for such a competition, so I may get lucky.

That's a recap of my last two weeks. I'll keep you updated in the weeks to come!

Settling In

After a few weeks in Riga I'm glad I made the choice to come here. I feel very much at home for being in a place very far away from home. I accredit that mainly to the people I've met. All of the students have been very nice, and once I get to know someone I hardly recognize the cultural differences between us. It also helps that there are so many ways to get involved and to meet people at SSE. For example, last week I went to the soccer trainings, which were on Wednesday and Thursday night. The school has a deal with the Olympic Center in Latvia (about 15 minutes walk from the school) to where we can play there for about 2 hours twice a week. Playing pick-up indoor soccer games has been a great way to meet more people (still struggling with names though).

This past weekend, I had another chance to see more of Riga, as I went to a club Friday night with my compadre and some of her friends. Entrance was free via accepting an invitation on Facebook, so I decided to check it out. This was my first time really experiencing a club scene, and it had all of the flashing lights and loud music you would expect, with multiple DJs in different rooms for different tastes in music. It left me with a headache by the end of the night, but it was a neat experience. Saturday night I went into town with Valentin and Ivan to look at more flats, and we decided to settle the issue over a beer or two at one of SSE Riga students' favorite bars. There we ran into a few students I knew from New Years and we had a good time hanging out with them.

As far as a flat goes, Valentin, Ivan, and I have a meeting with an owner tomorrow to review a contract. Rihards (one of the school's compadres) offered to help us search and spent last week looking around for cheaper and nicer flats for us. He's also done a great job negotiating price. It seems like many of the other students can't wait until we find a flat, since it's customary for students to throw a welcome-party in their flat when they first move in. I think some of the students who are stuck in the dorms (a few I talked to said they paid for the whole year as a single payment last semester) don't want us to leave since it will be that much quieter around here, but they have admitted that they would find a flat too if given the chance. Either way, I will still hang out with the students here, especially Gerard and Oleg, who I am around a lot.

Last week we had a completely new type of learning setting, as all of our work consisted of online simulations. This week, we are back to what we did during the first week, although we have a new lecturer this time around (some classes have professors who cycle). Monday I already have my first final, followed by a 10 page paper testing my WebGPSS skills due Friday. As for some of the other activities the school offers, I have been advertising one for a friend called "Peak Time." This is an international business competition for students and seems very prestigious. Winners of individual rounds will be given the chance to come to Riga in early May for a finals competition. The school also offers many academic clubs, such as a debate club, that I may consider joining for the semester.

My next class is Organization and Management, and in the class I have to go with my group (once again assigned, but this time with 5 people) to a business in Riga and learn about their management techniques and operations. A lottery was created so that few lucky groups will get to visit PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, or Ernst&Young. Since there are 30+ groups and only 3 or so get chosen, my hopes aren't too high but it is still an amazing opportunity.

As far as other news goes, I promise I'll start being more of a shutterbug and finally post some pictures! Also, at the end of January the school holds an event called Winter Symposium (Gerard is in charge of organizing it), which consists of a full day of skiing, games, and the first school-hosted party. I'll bring more details on that next time!

Until then, stay classy.

Fun, Frustration, and Food

Over the weekend I had a great time learning more about the culture here in Riga. Friday began with a double lecture, of which one was to learn WebGPSS systems (a popular simulation model for companies such as IBM). This week, all of the lectures are over these systems, and our assignments use a WebGPSS program. The weekend became more exciting Friday night, as all of the exchanges were invited on a pub tour. This is basically what it sounds like, though it began with meeting at the school and a few fun ice-breakers (they actually exist) before checking out some popular bars in and around Old Town. We also went to one of the student's flats to meet up with more students, and fortunately this allowed all of the exchanges to feel like just another SSE student through the night.

The next day, I slept late and at about 1:00 went into Old Town with Valentin (the German student) and Ivan (the French student) to look for a flat. The one we were shown was terribly overpriced and one room had a hole in the roof. This surprised me and frustrated us because we had searched the whole week before and thought we had found a decent flat for a good price (this wasn't our first or last disappointing visit). However, since then I have spoken with the Student Association at SSE and they gave me the number of the person who runs the apartment building where many of them live. Because of their help, we should find a good flat close to the school very soon. The dorms are not a bad place to live, but at night we often have bad internet connection from the amount of people getting on at the same time. On top of this, it is simply a huge inconvenience to take the bus whenever we want to do anything. However, living in the dorms for the first month has allowed me to meet some great students (thus allowing me to meet more people in the flat that we may move into). I would suggest anyone studying at SSE into the future to at least give the dorms a chance for the first month.

Saturday night I took it easy and had a good time just hanging out with a lot of the other students on my floor, despite hearing about UK's double loss. Sunday, I tried to begin my Managerial homework that was due Monday morning, but I found that the program I needed to run WebGPSS does not work on Macs. Because of this, I spent most of the day going all the way to the school to do the assignment, where I couldn't get the program to work either. I was lucky enough that by the time I got back to the school one of the other students allowed me to use his computer to finish the assignment. Today, I figured out how to work the program at school and finished the assignment before coming back to the dorms. These assignments are completely different from our work last week, although I believe the real-life simulation problems are something that many managers will have to do on the job when making economic decisions (how changing an input will affect an output). The switch in subjects has just made the course more exciting, and it is refreshing to do different work every so often.

On another note, I realized that I haven't spoken much on the food in Latvia, besides naming a few places that I have went. Most of the time, I eat breakfast and dinner at the dorms (we have close to a full kitchen and an oven is downstairs), which usually consists of eggs, pasta, or pelmeni. Pelmeni is a popular food here that is tasty and easy to make, consisting of meat (usually sausage) wrapped in a thin dumpling. It is similar to tortellini, but much more filling. I have eaten at Cili Pica a few more times, and have had some Latvian pasta as well as more of their unique pizzas. In the grocery close to the dorm there is also a very good sushi restaurant that some of the other students and I discovered. I ate there today, and was impressed at the quality of the food at a low price (it was similar to a high-scale American sushi restaurant). For lunch, I usually eat at the school, which has had wonderful food so far including chicken, a type of beef stew, potatoes, salad, etc. The food is not to different to what you can find in the US, but it is usually prepared differently, and in my opinion, prepared better. There is a Russian restaurant called Bufete close to the school where you can also get a full meal - such as soup, rice, some type of meat, about 3 types of sides or vegetables, and a drink - for about 2 Lats (roughly 4 dollars). I have done my best to avoid American meals, though I have been to Hesburger once (the Swedish version of McDonalds that many Europeans claim is better). Basically, the food here in Riga isn't anything to worry about if you are considering study at SSE Riga, and if anything should be a reason to visit.

That was my weekend of fun, some slight frustration, and really good food. Over the weekend, I have become a lot closer to many of the students from school and a lot of the exchanges, and this has made me glad that I chose somewhere away from other Americans to study abroad. I'm not saying it wouldn't be great to study with another student from the States, but I feel as though the diversity of nationalities has really allowed me to become close with students from all over the world and understand the differences in culture. It really makes me want to travel to other parts of Europe, and I will likely have to chance to go to some people's homes during a long weekend or one of the breaks. So that's it for now, but I'll be sure to post more soon. Also, I'll work on taking more pictures and uploading them here.

Schooling and Such

So I've had 3 days of class at this point and it's obvious that SSE Riga was a very good choice for STUDY abroad. The students at the school are all smart, and there's not near the level of slacking I notice in the United States. Grades here are taken seriously by almost everyone, and that makes it a very fun atmosphere to study in. The first class I am taking is Managerial Economics. Everyone I spoke to said that the professor was one of the most boring at the school, and that my professor for Macroeconomics is the best one. However, I find the lectures in Managerial Economics to be much more bearable than some of the classes I've taken back home, and the material we are learning is much more application based than just conceptual based (for example, I've had classes where I've studied the idea of different costing systems, but in this course we actually go through how to do each one). Class is from 9:15-11:00 each day with a 10 minute break at 10. This makes the class seem much shorter than what I'm used to. I'll have class Monday-Friday every week, and on certain days (tomorrow for example), I have an extended lecture until 2:15.

After the lecture, we are always given 2-3 problems to work on that are graded for credit and due before the end of the day. The grading system here is much different and much more difficult than back home. For example, until the tests, all of the assignments are graded on a pass/fail basis. So when you are given two problems, missing just one of them will end in a failing grade on the assignment (you are allowed to fix your work and resubmit it though, which may be for partial or full credit - I don't know). I'm not sure how much each assignment counts for the total grade, but I'm guessing that it is somewhere around half. My goal is just to pass each assignment to make sure that I am doing well in the course. As it goes on and the assignments accumulate, I will speak to the professor to get a definite idea on how the grades are split up. As far as classes go, I am very pleased with the amount I've been learning and the level of material I've covered.

Another thing about assignments is that we are randomly assigned a group member to complete all of the homework with. Mine is another exchange student named Akzhan from Kazakhstan. She knows English well and works well with me so I'm not worried about the assignments. She is also one of the other students I have met who live in the dorms. More students have moved in, and I have become friends with some of the other exchange students and the other students who live here. On my floor there is Gerard from Lithuania (who I spent New Years with), Oleg from Estonia (not an exchange student), Valentin from Germany (exchange), Ivan from France (exchange), and Ilias from Kyrgyzstan (also exchange). Most of the girls we know live on the first floor, including 3 exchange students and one student from Latvia. Valentin is the student I was in contact with before I came here, and he, Ivan, and I are interested in finding a flat together. As for life in Riga, I have been to a few more places around the school and eaten some terrific Russian food, but I haven't been to Old Town all week due to being at school and living so far away. However, I am excited to see what the weekend brings and I will most likely hang out with more students I have met in class, both those who live in the dorms and those in flats. I'll be back with a new post and I'm sure new things to share in a few days.

P.S. I apologize for any typos, as I did not reread this post before I sent it.

Day Before School Starts

So pretty much over the last few days I've just been trying to figure out the city on my own a little bit and get accustomed to the time change before class begins. New Years Eve was a lot of fun, as I hung out with a Lithuanian in the dorms named Gerard and a lot of his friends, who were first year and second year students from the school. We went to a few flat parties and at midnight went to the main park in the city to celebrate with everyone else who was out and to watch fireworks that were lit off.

Over the past few days, I have had some problems with the buses but nothing major. Today, I had a meeting at the school where I met Evita (the exchange advisor) and Diana (one of the program heads). It was a very helpful orientation, and it seems that class may be a lot different than what I am used to. For example, I will have class each morning from 9:15-11:00 Monday through Friday. During the rest of the day, I must work in a pair with one other student (which was done by random assignment) and finish an assignment before the end of the day. The school has a good reputation as being challenging and I could see that as there were already a few students at the school today preparing for class that starts tomorrow.

During the orientation, I had the chance to meet a few other exchange students from Germany, Lithuania, Sweden, and Kyrgyzstan (of which about half live in the dorm). As a group, we went to eat at a chain buffet that can be found around Riga known as "Lido." Here we ate typical Latvian food, of which I had some type of potatoes and a smoked chicken shish kebab. We then finished the night and came back to the dorms. I'll be in bed early tonight so I can be up early tomorrow for class. I'm sure I will have a lot more to report then.