1. Enjoy parties!
The first tip covers practically all student clichés. However, partying at university is much more than just getting drunk. Rather, partying will help you make new friends, meet fellow students outside IMC, get away from your studies, and get to talk to students from higher semesters and from other departments.
Since most first-semester students (“freshers”) come from other cities/states/abroad, many are looking to connect with a new clique. There will never be another moment in your life when it is so easy to make new friends than at freshers’ meetings during your studies. In my experience, many of the friends you make during your first semester stay in touch throughout your studies and beyond. Many of our graduates say: “I met my life-time friends there.” In the end, friends are a kind of family substitute at your place of study. Of course, parties are not the only way to make friends, but the experience of evenings together outside of your studies creates a bond.
2. Find allies and show perseverance!
Ultimately, you have to complete your studies on your own. But fellow students who have a similar motivation for studying as you can be an incredible help. This not only makes lectures and exercises more interesting, but also learning phases and project work. In addition, it is especially important that you can borrow material if, for example, you miss lectures due to health or motivation reasons. When choosing, you should avoid the two extremes: neither the “bookworm” nor the “party animal” are suitable learning partners, as they either use up far too much or too little motivation for studying. Look for people who are similar to you in terms of goals and motivation.
3. Get to know your second, temporary home and the beautiful surroundings!
Since many students are not from Krems, we recommend taking some time before the actual start of your studies to get to know more of the city and the region – even if your hometown is not too far away. You will always discover new places when you explore the city or region from a different perspective. A short trip to the surrounding region can also be exciting. It is very important that you feel at home in your new home to make your studies successful. Even if many cities seem too small, too big, too crowded, too dirty or too conservative at first glance, you will certainly discover your highlights – many of them are only recognisable at second glance.
Our international students, but also the locals, are enthusiastic about Krems. You can go everywhere by bike or city bus (ecological footprint). Doing sports on the Danube is simply wonderful, and the landscape is a dream. True, you can’t compare Krems with Vienna or other big cities. However, thanks to five universities, there are 15,000 students in our city, and you can see that everywhere. So, you come to a small town with a “student spirit” and still you are only an hour away from our federal capital Vienna.
4. Learn more about what the university offers!
Every university offers numerous opportunities to engage in extracurricular sports, artistic or civic activities. Every student should reserve some time for physical, mental or spiritual well-being in his or her everyday life. Long periods of sitting in lectures, a lot of stress during exam weeks or during project work need a balance. The Universitäts-Sportinstitut Krems (USI), with its numerous offers, provides one of many suitable solutions. In addition to the classic sports in the Krems clubs, such as handball, football, basketball and tennis, there is also rugby, Asian martial arts, fencing, as well as clubs for music, singing and much more.
We have prepared an overview for you here: Studying and living in Krems
5. Get involved!
Personal involvement at the university kills several birds with one stone. You provide variety in your everyday study life, you make friends, and you work on different projects and sharpen your soft skills. Although getting involved in university groups is often time-consuming, it’s well worth it. We call it “going the extra mile”. For example, the association “Students of Krems” and the ÖH (Austrian Student Union) of IMC Krems are constantly looking for committed members.
Students of Krems – Community for everyone studying in Krems
ÖH IMC Krems
6. Look beyond the horizon!
One of the many highlights of our UAS is the Erasmus semester, which grants every European student a semester abroad in another EU country. Travel and accommodation costs are largely paid for by the EU. How exciting to get to know a new city in another country over several months and come back with unique experiences!
If you don’t have the time for a semester abroad, you might want to take part in one of the numerous projects or study trips. During my six semesters, I participated in various programmes that took me to New York City, St. Gallen, Moscow, Prague and Zagreb, among others.
Get a taste now: Study abroad
7. Don’t be a homebody!
Of course, after a strenuous week at university, it may seem to be a good idea to enjoy the benefits at mum and dad’s: a full fridge, laundry done, plenty of distance from your studies and a return to an ideal world without exams, deadlines for presentations and projects, and everyday stress. But in our opinion, that is the wrong way. After all, studying at university means taking on more responsibility for yourself and standing on your own two feet. How can someone who studies during the week but lives with his parents from Friday noon to Monday morning like a child learn to take responsibility? Surely there are other opinions on this – and that’s fine. That’s what we want to state at this point.
In the long run, those who commute between the two worlds of university and home risk associating the entire place of study with work and stress, but their parents’ home with leisure and relaxation. Our tip: All students should try being away from home for several weeks, at least at the beginning. The joy of reuniting with the family is then all the greater.
8. Freedom and responsibility
For most freshers, the start of their studies brings a whole host of new freedoms and responsibilities. On the one hand, there is no one to tell you when to be at home or to clean your room. On the other hand, this freedom also means a great responsibility for yourself. The success of a study project ultimately depends on how you combine freedom and responsibility. If you use your freedom too much, i.e., if you skip classes too often, put off studying and leave the cleaning to your flatmates, you can really get into trouble.
The essence of studying may be learning special qualifying skills, but it is much more important to get to know yourself and organise yourself. It takes a fair amount of diligence, perseverance, motivation, fun and ambition to be successful at your studies. So, how to motivate yourself properly, how to study efficiently, how to cook “fast, healthy and yet delicious” meals, how to write correct seminar papers and much more, and ultimately how to organise your life in a way that promises success, is something you don’t learn in, but through your studies. What a wonderful opportunity to have the freedom to find your ideal path!
9. Those who read have a clear advantage: get your information!
In almost every way, information primarily serves those who have it. We can say that “being well informed” can be an elementary part of studying. But it is up to you to make sure you are informed. Knowing brings immense advantages.
Tip: Listen carefully at IMC Induction, take notes, and ask when something is unclear. We have great service departments at our UAS that provide you with information (Study Services, Career Services and, of course, your programme director, whom you won’t just meet in the “directors’ corners”).
Some students often don’t even know what services are available to them. In the last century, bulletin boards were the place to go to seek and find, but today this information has moved to the digital web, where it is more difficult to get an overview. Therefore, we recommend that you get to know the internal area (we call it E-Desktop with the APP IMC today) well.
10. Summary
All of these tips for studying successfully serve for personal organisation and networking. Personal organisation includes the management of everyday life, the definition of your own motivation and a certain vision of where your studies should lead. Networking includes all activities with friends, fellow students and university organisations, which have two purposes for students, namely, to build a social network (a.k.a. surrogate family) and to obtain all relevant information.
Your academic success depends much less on intelligence and is rather a reflection of motivation, time management and the friendships you make during your studies.
Please note: Our tips are based on the experiences of thousands of graduates. They don’t have to reflect your opinion, and you don’t have to like them. But maybe they are helpful for some of you, which makes us happy.
We wish all our freshers a fantastic start to the new academic year.
A little lexicon for the start of your studies
Student life hasn’t even really started yet, and already there is one academic term after another, and the abbreviations come on top. We have collected a few important terms on the topic of studying and the relevant explanation for you below.
• Abstract = An abstract is a short summary of a book, text or article. Compared to a detailed review, you do not have to question or evaluate the content of a text, but simply summarise it. Nevertheless, writing an abstract is more difficult than you think.
• Curriculum = the course outline
• Extracurricular (activities) = additional voluntary courses/activities/engagements besides your studies
• Freshers/Erstis = the first-semester students
• Induction = days or week of the induction or induction events
• LV = Course
• PTS = Practical Training Semester (the compulsory work placement for full-time students)
• Syllabus = description of the individual courses in detail
• Alumni = graduates (comes from Latin)
• s.t. = sine tempore (you have to be on time, this applies at our UAS)
• c.t. = cum tempore (you can be late for the course – this does not apply at our UAS)
• Wochenteiler = going out on Wednesday
Text based on: Author: Jonas Prien | f1rstlife (firstlife.de)
*Of course, we know that our tips are obsolete or not relevant for our freshers who have chosen part-time studies and our freshers of the master’s programmes. With this article, we want to address primarily our “first-timers” who have chosen the full-time version.
And to make sure you always know what’s going on in our IMC community, follow us on one of our social media channels.
