Tests
There are typically two ways you can pass a course in a Croatian university. You can either get a passing grade from all the mid-terms and assignments or if you happen to fail or miss one of those mid-terms, you can do a bigger test at the end of the course. The big test includes all the material gone through in the course and it’s needless to say, the mid-term option is easier. The students here actually told me that if you fail on the mid-terms because it was too difficult, there’s usually no hope for you in the last test.
I’ve reached the point of my studies where I’m facing my first mid-terms. Two of them are already behind me and there’s one more to go. It was hard to prepare for the tests since I didn’t really know how detailed the tests would be here, but apparently the situation is just like in Finland, it depends on the teacher.
My first test from Principles of Economics was very hard. The structure of it was two essay questions, ten multiple-choice questions and 2 applied math problems. The second one from Marketing Innovation was 6 essay questions, or was it 8? Anyways, it doesn’t seem all that bad, but the “funny” thing was that they only gave us an hour to do the test. AN HOUR! Throughout the whole test, it felt like I was being chased by time and it was quickly catching up on me. An hour really was not enough to answer all the questions properly, and majority of my classmates thought so as well.
Stress
As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, school here is quite a bit more demanding than back at JAMK. I still haven’t received any results from my tests here, but I’m worried about the Principles of Economics test. It really did not go well, and the subject has become extremely difficult for me. I’m afraid I might fail that course, which has caused me (mildly put:) quite a bit of stress here.
I tried to Google for what happens if you fail in Erasmus, but I just couldn’t find a straight answer. I couldn’t find any official source explaining what will happen if you fail, but I did find a conversation board where there were other students discussing their own Erasmus failures. The stories were divided into three:
1) You have to pay back your grant for the amount of credits that you failed (In my case it would be 400€)
2) Teachers will allow exchange students to pass the course with extra assignments
3) You fail the course, go back to your home institution and explain what happened; they will let it be without consequences.
So if I fail, I will just have to hope for options 2 or 3. I really would hate to pay back the 400€, since this trip has already cost me more than I budgeted. The idea of the option no. 1 feels so unfair considering that this exchange is a compulsory part of our studies. It would be like getting punished for trying. I will just have to hope for the best!
Bowling
Professional
We’ve become good friends among the Finnish exchange students here. We’ve been spending time together quite a bit and we even organized a Finnish style pre-christmas party! 
(unfortunately, I forgot my camera home that day) But when we heard that there was a bowling alley not too far away, we all agreed that we have to go. Me, Niklas, Henrik and Meri went there to try it out.
You can check out the pictures for it on the link below.
Click to see pictures
The bowling alley is located in the Arena Mall down in Novi Zagreb. To rent the alley for an hour it cost 170kn (if I recall correctly), which is roughly 22€. So pretty much the same price as in Finland, or even more expensive actually. In Finland I think the most common price is 20€/h and most places offer discounts for students as well.
It was a lot of fun and somehow as I was just focused on the bowling there, I managed to forget about my school stress for a while, which is always great. For those who know me, know that I’m a bit over-stressed always about everything.
I managed to be the winner of the 1st round and Meri wont the 2nd round. However, surprisingly Niklas won the whole thing by total scores. Henrik didn’t manage to get any titles for himself this time, but maybe next time.
Austria
Clock tower at the top of a mountain
Few of the girls in our Erasmus group found out about a great deal to go to Austria. It was a travel agency deal and they were offering 1 day trip to Graz, Austria with only the cost of 110kn! So even less than our 1-hour bowling session. We also had a short guided tour around the city, which was a bit boring at times, but interesting nevertheless.
I really fell in love with Austria that day and especially Graz. It really felt like walking through some fairy tale at times. The buildings there were really old, but extremely well kept. The city was clean and I didn’t think I would miss something like paying with euros, but apparently I did It gets tiresome after a while to be always changing everything into euros and then at the same time trying to remember how much this and that cost back in Finland.
Anyway, in my usual habit I took some pictures from the trip, but my batteries ran out of power almost at the beginning, so I had to use the camera in my phone for most of the time. The quality is obviously poorer, but at least I got some pictures.
The clock tower on the picture represents the kind of old meets new that I personally loved in that city.
We’re already planning on going back to Austria, to see Vienna and on the same trip maybe to see some other cities in the “nearby” area, like Bratislava and/or Budapest. But I’ll keep you posted on that
You can see the (not so good) pictures I took from this trip in the link below: