Check-in (all passengers)

Studying abroad will have one major consequence - have your luggage packed!

In the past year and a half I have flown more that I have my whole life. As you can imagine each flight has been an adventure so here are several flying tips (...or are they memories?)

Flying tip number one: Do not and I repeat DO NOT go out the night before! You will have trouble finding the most common of belongings, such as, PASSPORT, USB stick, watch, phone, wallet, etc. Have some nice rest, do not listen to your friends calling! Be responsible! ...and if you do go out, do not sleep! If your friends are telling you two hours of sleep are better than none DO NOT listen to them! You will not hear your phone! (I never do.)

[...this blog has become the Dos and Don'ts of Vladimir Galabov)

Flying tip number two: Always have at least some luggage packed the night before, don't leave packing for the last minute!

Flying tip number three: Always book your coach ticket (if there is such) earlier! Do not wait for the day of the flight, sometimes even the night before you will not manage to find a coach ticket!

Finally, flying tip number four: You will be doing this a lot, so whatever happens do not make a big deal out of it: no panic and no stress!

[...and don't forger living in Birmingham gives you one of the best opportunities - fly low-cost anywhere you want - I am going to Dublin for £8 return this week.]

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!
May 2009 be filled with a little more love, a little more luck, a little more smiles and at least a pocketful of sunshine!

Mummy, I am going to get a part time job!

Away from getting on with university work, everybody may seem to have the perception of students wasting away their days watching daytime television and recovering from parties at the weekends. Of course it's tempting to live that life, but it won’t help you launch a career when you graduate unless you know a boss who will let you watch television while you work and take Fridays off. Part time work while studying offers many career benefits, even if they can add up to a heavy schedule around essay and exam time. Here are some tips for making the most of them.

Get a job to improve your skills, not just your bank balance
University life is not getting any cheaper so it's commonplace to give up a few evenings or a day at the weekend to ease the strain on the student loan. The benefits don’t have to end with your bank account getting healthier, if you can find a job that gives you experience other employers value it will be even more valuable.

Plan your vacations
Sure, you need some time away from studying, but vacations are prime periods to get more involved with work that can aid your CV. Internships normally run during the summer and Easter vacations, which may be a course requirement, or a great way to advertise your skills to a potential employer for when you graduate. You could also use a vacation to turn a part time job into a full time one if your workload permits, bumping up your bank balance and perhaps offering more responsibility.

Change your job to broaden your skills base
There is nothing wrong with having one part time job during your whole time at university, but don't be afraid to seek out a change of scene if you are getting bored doing the same thing or feel like a fresh challenge. This can really help strengthen your CV if you can build up a wide variety of skills or show progress. There are normally plenty of part time opportunities for students, although you might want to secure a new job before quitting your current one.

Don’t put paid work first
After all this, remember that you are at university to study. Employers might put pressure on you to work extra shifts, eating into time spent on course work or revising for exams. If this happens, make it clear it is unacceptable and consider leaving. They should understand a degree is more important than a part time job.

Aston Update (pt.II)

Let me start by wishing Happy Holidays to everyone!

I have been planning this post for quite a while but with the holiday frenzy overtaken my family, I have been most occupied. So let me continue...

The other major Aston happening has been the coursework submission. The second year has been copious with papers. I had to write a business plan for the Business Game Module (a total of 25 pages) and an article for the Econometrics Module (a total of 17 pages). The last week of November and the whole of December was the 'Lab Time Special' as I like to call it. The 'Lab Time Special' is a particular phenomenon which implies the 24-hour working computer labs will be full 24/7. I have seen people spend their entire Saturday sitting in them labs - no food, no drink; just a fag from time to time. We were like an army of zombies, ready to kill anyone who would stand in the way of the coursework completion.

The day of submission was the most hectic of course: people running everywhere, sheets flying around, angry mobs complaining about the queue at the Copy Shop or the non-working printers. I have even hear do of people who had had a most unforgettable day...

Mr A. encountered a very serious problem - the night before submission day he was again sitting in the cold computer labs, finishing his report; when leaving the lab he "saved" all his information on his USB stick and left; getting home he tried to open his files and guess what, "the files have been corrupted" message sows on the screen!

Poor Mr A. could not find the problem, or recover his files so he had to ask for an extension. While I was drinking wine around Christmas, Mr A. was writing his article, yet again! I hope he saved it this time!

Aston Update (pt.I)

Here is the long promised update on the Aston scene. As usual there has been so many stuff happening a person cannot even follow all the action. To be honest I feel like I have just started the term and it is already finishing.

Maybe the most stressing task everyone have found this year was the Business Game. It has been most interesting but incredibly demanding. Till now I had two main tasks in the module: a business plan and a presentation. God, I still remember the day of the presentation as if it was five minutes ago. We were all so stressed...

To be able to understand how awful the presentation was you have to know everything that happened in the previous 72 hours. The presentation was on a Thursday at 11:20. We met on the previous Tuesday to see how far we are with the whole idea of even putting everything together. Tuesday was a disaster, we found out that we were totally unprepared. We met in a computer lab in the business school and stayed there for about 5 hours trying to write our separate parts. Then we put it all together and I will be honest with you, it looked awful...

11:00 Wednesday we met to start practising the "whatever you call" the thing we put together the previous day. I found out that no one except me has ever presented anything, ever (I was so lucky to have so many presentations is my high school. Our timing was bad, no one could improvise and as a whole the idea of even standing in front of a jury the next day seemed ridiculous. We stayed together till about 10 in the evening practising an correcting, correcting and practising until finally we made it under the 15 minute limit.

09:00 Thursday, two hours before the big presentation, we started our final preparations. The previous night I had fixed the slides themselves and everything was starting to look good. Then a new problem arose: we were too fast and seemingly were just speed-reciting the whole thing. Two hours later we seemed to have narrowed it down to 12 minutes, which was still quite bad, but still a solution. Going last, I had the task of slowing down as fast as possible and winning us some time, which was quite easy; I did not have anything prepared and was just talking freely about my slides. I could extend my 5 minutes to whatever I was asked.

11:10 Thursday. While we were waiting to be called into the room the atmosphere outside was unbelievable. You could easily cut the air with a knife! The group waiting with us was supper ambitious and unbelievably competitive. Then about 5 minutes later the groups that were before us came out and said and I quote: "They are going to eat you alive!" and "Good luck!" with a nasty smirk on their st*** self-obsessed face. My group sank, oh, poor guys, they had done so much work the days before. I looked the the annoying group leader right into the eye and I told him: "We don't need luck, these guys are more prepared then anyone in the university!" Literally, a second later we got called in...

The Jury was of five people: one representative of Lloyds, one representative of Accenture, two people from the Aston Business School and my Business Game tutor. The time in there passed in a glimpse of an eye. We seemed to be over so fast and then the questions came. We got asked the two nastiest questions in the history of presenting!

A week later we found our result - 67%, not too shabby but still, for all the work we had put in, unbelievable low. This week I found out that they had cut points for the most ridiculous reasons! It is true what they say, when there is a jury, there is unfairness!

..to be continued

Placement Adventures # 9 (en ultramar)

en ultramar - n. oversea (Webster Spanish-English Online Dictionary)

I was planning to stop the placement adventures for a while and continue with university stuff but I just cannot drop one of the most fascinating job offers in the Aston Business School Placement Website.

I have been discussing so many different parts of the application process and the different opportunities and the help you can get but I have never mentioned the possibility of going abroad or as called in the ABS website "overseas". Partly, because I have not considered doing a placement in another country, I have not searched or encountered any information on the mater until this week; and there is PLENTY!

There is one inportant thing one must decide first - does he/she want to work or study? Does that sound odd? Well, if you go overseas you could study in a different university for a year. Some of the locations I remember are Austria, USA, India, etc. On the other hand if you want to have a "placement" placement you can chose from some of the adds. Please note that I am only discussing regular students like me, not students studying a language or planning to go abroad from the start. It is high time I got to the point.

While I was browsing, bored, in the library I found a job add that was offering a placement with "company X" in the Netherlands. That just sounded so exciting. Now I am almost ready with my application and will be submitting it tonight.

If anyone is looking for adventure and excitement, check the available placement (or exchange) abroad!

Placement Adventures # 8 (Wywiad)

wywiad - n. interview (Polish - English Dictionary www.dict.pl)

After months of waiting and 7 Placement Adventures today I just got my first interview invitation. One of the "X companies" saw potential in me! Evidently Placement adventures # 8 will be continued soon. (15th January)

to be continued...

Placement Adventures # 7 (изпит)

изпит - n. test (Bulgarian-English Webster Online Dictionary)

The Online Assessment is definitely not what one would expect, or at least, not what I expected. Here I will try to describe in detail the whole process so that you are
all prepared.

As most of the placement adventures, this one starts with online registration it is definitely a comparatively fast process, though. After the registration you enter into your own account. In my account there were four tests - two practice tests and two real tests. They were divided into two basic categories: logical and math.

1/ The Logical Reasoning Tests (LRT) started with a practice test of 5 questions. I have to say they were terribly easy. The actual or as they call it "main" test was 24 questions for 12 minutes and some of them were so difficult that I could hardly be sure of the answers.

Here is a website that could help you: www.kent.ac.uk/careers/tests/spatialtest

Here are some examples of questions:

The Answer here is C


The Answer here is D

2/ Numerical Reasoning Tests (NRT) were much harder. There were 5 practice questions, which I have to say were not too hard, some basic calculations. The main test was 20 questions for 20 minutes and the questions were so hard; the last four questions I, literally, just clicked to not leave empty!

I am fairly certain that for some people the online assessment is going to be a piece of cake while for others it is going to be extremely challenging. You cannot do with it, bu you can not do without it! As far as I am concerned, what is left for me now is WAIT FOR THE RESULTS!

Placement Adverntures # 6 (答え)

答え - n. answer, reply (Japanese - English Dictionary http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/dict)

The time when I started the series of posts called Placement Adventures was roughly the time when my adventures actually started. In the past several weeks I have been rewriting CVs, writing Covering Letters and filling up Job Applications. it is so much work and you never know if it is going to pay off.

The time when I started the series of posts called Placement Adventures was roughly the time when I started checking my e-mail twenty time a day, sometimes every half an hour, eagerly waiting for an answer from one of the four companies I have already applied for.

The time when I started the series of Posts called Placement Adventures was the time when I started praying for an answer (and oh my God, it sounds so cheesy and film-like but in reality imagine a more whnier and desperate kinda way)

At two minutes to two o'clock today (Oh, my God even the time is epic) I got the first invitation to stage two - Online Assessment Centre. Finally one of the X companies decided I am not a total screw-up, finally someone decided to give me a chance.

Now my Placement Adventures continue and I will be needing help...

Placement Adventures #5 (S'appliquer à )

S'appliquer à: to apply to (Collins French-English Dictionary)

Probably the most frustrating part of my placement adventures has to be the online applications I have to submit. Of course the applications vary between the different companies. There is one thing in common, they are all perfectly appalling. It would be so much easier to just send your CV with a Covering Letter to an e-mail. I can probably divide the different characteristics of the online application method in several points:

1) Registration I cannot believe how many websites I had to register in. I am currently a member of the Toyota, Peugeot, Kraft Foods and Intel websites. And bear in mind that I have just started applying, I haven't even submitted applications in all of the companies. But you always have to register. Bottom line, I wake up with 5 extra e-mail every day!

2) Online CV The most frustrating thing in the online application process is the so called 'online CV'. Most of the companies want you to, literally, write a new CV for them. In some cases it is even more detailed than your normal one. In other, it is much shorter. Only after you make your online CV you can attach and submit your normal CV. I just don't see the point in sending two CVs. Do you?

3) Questionnaire After the online CV most companies would ask you to fill in a online questionnaire. Up to ten questions which you need to answer in up to 150 words. You can imagine it takes so much time.

4) Online Covering Letter Some companies want you to write your 'motivation' in your application. Others just want you to give an answer to a specific question concerning the company.

5) Online Tests Some companies would start testing you from the very application: " In 2000 words answer the question - What is the effect of the economics crisis in the company X's industry."

The bottom line is - be prepared with time and patience!

Placement Adventures # 4 (Curriculum Vitae)

Curriculum Vitae: a summary of your academic and work history (The Princeton Dictionary)

In other words, the one way you can tell your future employer who you are, in an extremely concise way of course. There are three huge disadvantages CV:
- You don't really have a choice for the format (for your placement CV that is)
- It is so extremely impersonal (I mean, you can't even state anything in first person)
- You have exactly two pages to describe the best of all your life!

And yet, that is your best shot at getting your future employer to hire you, and what's more - IT IS YOUR ONLY CHANCE! Therefore, right now everyone I know from uni is constantly asking for tips, writing, rewriting and obsessing about their CV. Of course, everyone includes me. I spent two days writing my "new" CV hoping it would be good enough. The worst thing is, I can never know if some particular employer is going to like it. So, as the placement office advisers said: "Just send it to as many companies as you can!"

To be honest, I have had plenty of support from the Placement Office when writing my CV and, yet, there is never a guarantee, is there? In the end of the day, all one can do is hope that his done a good job enough making his academic and work achievements seem impressive. All that is left after that is WAIT...

PS: I have just added a free messaging service, you can send a free text message to any mobile in the world. I just tried it and it is working just fine. You have to register real fast first to get a password sent, but it is all free. Enjoy!

Placement Adventures # 3 (Far Far Away)

On a floor far far away (actually 6th) in the Aston Main Building you can find a very extraordinary room - The Placement Office. I have talked with so many people from so many universities and the Aston Business School Placement office is the most useful place for a student on the quest for a placement. Even the other schools in Aston don't have the office. There are three main features to it:

1) Placement Office Briefing Sessions
For me these lectures have been the most useful feature of the placement office. They literally taught me how to write a proper CV and cover letter.

2) CV and Cover letter check
The CV and Cover letter check is the bets thing for a placement student. Keep in the you can have specialized companies check your CV but that will cost up to £200. In the placement office it's free! (God I love free stuff!)

3) Website
The website has, for me, being the perfect planning tool of all the stuff I have to do to get a placement, starting from choosing an employer, a position, writing a proper CV and then a proper cover letter.

4) Appointments
Hopefully my time will come to use the 15 minute appointments. A student can have a mock interview and practice what he/she is going to say on the actual job interview!

5) etc. ask for more!

Oops, my briefing session is starting!

Placement Adventures # 2 (Meet the X)

This week I will use X for every company that has had or will have a presentation at Aston. It is unbelievable how many companies are interested in having interns from our university. I did not realise how amazing that is until I talked with a friend of mine who is from a different university and unfortunately hasn't had the same 'luck'. But is it luck? No, it is probably university connections, the good performance of previous interns or postgraduates, or maybe even our Business School rank place. So, prospective students beware of the internship opportunities you are going to have once you get here.

I have been so busy last couple of weeks that I did not even manage to go to half of the presentations. There is at least one every day of the week! Here are some of the companies that I managed to go to (only in the first week of presentations)


I will return to this list tomorrow and give a little feedback on the company presentations.

Placement Adventures #1

The second year brings one horrible thing - Placement Search.

It seems like every single student is searching for his/her placement. How can you tell - there are three questions anyone can ask you through the day:

- So, are you gong to company X's presentation?
- So, how is the placement search going?
- Did you find a placement yet?

Of course, it always seems that the person asking you is one step ahead and is just trying to rub it in your face. Thank got there are so much help from the Placement Office. It my LAST HOPE! Talking about the Placement Office, I have not given you any updates on any placement stuff yet, so this week is the official placement week in my blog.

The End of an Era

January 19th 2008 is one of the dates I think I will always remember - the day when I started my first job in the UK.

On the 18th January I went out with Kara and just as we were dancing she told me that the pub she worked in were looking for staff. On the next day, as a joke, I went to the pub and had an interview with on of the managers Simon. I clearly remember his questions and my lies:

Simon: Do you play sports?
Vlad: Oh yeah, me an my flatmates play football every week
(Yeah wight we did it twice through the whole year)
Simon: I see you have work experience behind a bar.
Vlad: Oh yes, you can see that I have worked quite long in 'No Name', the only thing I have not done is pour pints because we did not serve draft. You can call my ex-manager Jane Ramsheva for reference
(Manager, right, that was my ex-girlfriend)

Anyway, I got the job. I got home and three hours later they called me for a trial shift and induction. Just like that the roundabout started turning and after almost a year it stopped. Yesterday I served my last pint and do not intend to go back any time soon. But, still, I can't help but missing The Newt. I have this theory that there is 'A Newt Curse'. Every single employee that has left keeps coming back, either to work, or as a customer, but they can never stay apart for too long. Probably it is the staff, probably it is the atmosphere, but I know I will be coming back, not only to get a pint but to see my ex-colleagues and my ex-managers, to sit on the old chairs where I used to sit after shifts. For the time I worked in 'The Newt' I saw the management fully changed four timer. The only three people that are left from my starting team now are Simon, Kara and Sam. Yesterday I found out that Simon has give his one month notice and is going to Australia in December. Now that I look back the only things I remember are the fun times and the ridiculous situations. I bet you can get a feeling of the place too, even if you go 'as a joke', Student Nights are now Saturdays but I know who will not be serving you!

Now I can finally write on my CV:

The Newt (21/01/2008 - 24/10/2008)

My First Lectures at Aston University (Round II)

It has been too long since I have been postponing this post. You would ask why is that? The Answer is hidden in the very title of this post: 'Round II'. The second year is, so far, the toughest year in my academic life (not that my academic life is so long, but still). Here are the simple impressions of an average second year student, that's me.

1) Unbelievably for me, and everyone else in my lecture theatre, first day of uni started at 9 a.m. with my fist lecture, and by lecture I mean a full length, 54 slide, 98 minutes revision of Micro economic concepts. I could not believe my eyes, the lecturer not only had time to introduce himself and finish the lecture, but also finished 2 minutes earlier.

2) The second lecture got the theatre fully overcrowded; it was so hot that people started falling asleep (incl। myself); it was so full that you could hardly hear the lecturer. It has been sorted by now, but still.

3) The third lecture was very, very disturbing। I got told that I am to be taking part in a simulation of a car-production company; later in the week got chosen for the Financial Management position; in the following weeks understood that I am scr**d.

4) The fourth lecture was finally just an introduction to the module, no information to remember, just half an our of the most stressful numbers in your life. The second lecturer, basically told us that we are all doomed and will get low grades.

5) The fifth lecture was the Business policy and I can openly say, the worst subject this year। It is basically a lot of obvious assumptions, put in a textbook. When you add the US influence on the textbook, the whole subject becomes bloody evil.

6) I missed the sixth and final lecture because I got confused with time। Yet last week I managed to find out that I don't remember anything of my statistics classes and that I may possibly fail the test next week.


So these are my first impressions from this year. Now I assume you don't want to hear only about the academia but also about the life. That is why I am dedicating next week to the upcoming Halloween (Halloween is huge in Aston). I am not only going to tell you all about my Halloween Aston Party, but also take out the old box of photos from last year.

My Very First Lectures at Aston University

I can still vividly remember my very first week in Aston. I was so excited, hoping to perform good and show my best, ready for the adventure that was my first year. Or at least I thought so...

My very first lecture was - Introduction to Organisational Behaviour. Patrick, the lecturer, just mesmerized everyone in The Great Hall. I think from all my first year lecturers Patrick was the one that just always managed to pull out an actual show. People would sometimes applaud him after the lectures. So, to go back to my very first lecture. I stepped into the Great Hall expecting the worst. I had no idea what Organisational Behaviour is and I imagined the professors to be all serious and stern. Patrick started with introducing himself (as every lecturer) but it was not the usual introduction, it felt sincere, honest and really personal. As if we were out in a pub - me, my mates and Patrick and we were just telling each other crazy stories from when we were young (lets just say that). I left the lecture calm and relaxed, thinking that everything to follow was easy and fun. God, I was so gullible!

The Management came next, then the Economics, then the Accounting, the Marketing and they all just seemed so difficult and new. I had never ever discussed the subjects in school. I would comment on every lecture with my mates and we would all be like: 'That wasn't too bad...' or 'I liked it', or 'Piece of cake!'. Bloody hell, we were all so wrong. It turns out that you have to actually read after the lectures and prepare yourself for the next one, and write homework, and even do research. You can imagine that the longer it takes one to realize all that the harder it's going to be for him to cope with it. Well, we found that out in Week 3 when we had our first quiz in Financial Accounting. We all felt so unprepared and plain stupid. That is when we had to go back to the first lecture and catch up. We would have study groups which now seem like a total waste of time. We would call friends and previous teachers and even parents for help when all we needed to do was read and just absorb the material.

Still, there was one subject that I immensely liked from the very first lecture. That is - Quantitative Techniques. Oh, I still remember the first slide, it was on some material I had covered in school 5 years ago. I finally had a subject that I had an amazing advantage in. Yes, it was not very interesting, but I did not have to study at all. I never bought the Quantitative Techniques textbook and I still love the subject.

Just like that my first week was over, and then the next one... Today I feel like I just got into uni, not much wiser and not much smarter, just a boy on its way to real life. OK, well, maybe a bit smarter and just a very tiny bit wiser, and more prepared for what is to come.

The First Week of Uni

No matter which year you are, what degree you are having, or what plans you are trying to fulfil, the first week of the uni year is always a bit scary, a bit disturbing, very exciting and always fun. In the first year of uni your module leader may tell you that you are going to fail but you are going to laugh in his/her face. Later on you may think thing through, more rationally and seriously, but in the first week it is all about the fun.

The fun comes from the constant complaining about the lecturers, the unending small-talk about controversial** subjects, the hasty remarks abut everything new. In the first week of uni you will be laughing at you future misery and I bet that future you will be cursing those gullible moments of mere understatement.

In the week to come I will share with you my perceptions from last years lecturers during freshers week and what has changed this year...


**controversial (in tha first week of uni you will find yourself arguing with your mates about a certain module - they would think it's impassable, while you can already see the first on your diploma)

Freshers Flu

Hopefully, there are less flu cases between students this Freshers Week compared to last year. I can still remember my first freshers flu last year. Me and my eight flatmates were all sick and were ready to try anything, I mean ANYTHING (:P), to get better.

I was living on a box of pills my mother had given me. I think I was taking a total of ten a day. Now that I think about it, that surely cannot be good for you.

One of my flatmates, the infamous 'Party Animal' was trying to cure himself on herbal tea and vitamins.

'The Hippies' were so desperate they even agreed to try some of my pills. In the end they could not put themselves through it and left the pills for when they are on their deathbed.

'The Hard Worker' being a pharmacy student was living on paracetamol because it is the base of most of the flu pills.

Of course we all got better with time but, still, the experience was not a good one.

... Unfortunately I did not learn from my mistake and currently am one of the ill second year in a raw. The flu will pass and, surely, will not ruin last weeks amazing experiences. Yet, I felt obliged to give TIP 10 FOR PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS: Health is important! Try to stay healthy and enjoy the uni experience at its fullest.

Freshers Week 2008

Freshers Week 2008 has hit the university and does not want to let it go. It is unbelievable how a humans body can withstand the torture that is Freshers Week. There is a full schedule of activities starting early morning and finishing, well, early morning; absolutely no time for rest. I have already posted the events for the week and there is no point of repeating myself, instead let me share with you the highest and lowest points of the week.

The Freshers Pub Crawl has been the highest event this week, and definitely the most attended. I have to say that compared to last year, this year's pub crawl was quite unorganized; and yet, I had so much fun. This year fewer pubs were included: (and surprisingly - one restaurant)Einstein's - Sound Bar - MinZu - The Newt - The Yard of Ale - Scruffy's. Of course the big finish was at The Guild, which was at its fullest. The 1st October will be remembered for a long while. It was truly the best night of the Freshers Week so far.

There have been quite a lot of disappointmets. As a whole the Guild has lost some of its glamour this year. I was surprised to see the once constantly overflowing halls now empty with a sigh of disappointment in the air. I think this year's Indie Night was the biggest disappointment of all. The were more people in Einie's than in the main room. Another fact that has surprised me is that I have been able to get in after 11:30 buying a ticket at the door every night. Last year you had to pray to get inside after 11:00 with a ticket.

But putting negativity aside, I have been enjoying Freshers Week 2008 so far and I am going to keep a positive spirit and wait with anticipation for tonight's surprise. Tonight is set to be on of the best. Yet we are all expecting the closing party on Sunday, which is set to be amazing.