Oral part confusion

Some of my memories from oral part are dangerously vivid, some parts are clouded, maybe I forced the forgetting of them. Oral part was tense, the atmosphere was tense. The atmosphere was the worst part. It began on Monday, we had to go to opening ceremony. The ceremony was held in our classroom, our small classroom, and there we stood, pupils on one side, teachers on the other side. It was like us versus them. The headmaster had some speech, but I wasn´t really paying attention. I was looking on the teachers, they looked kind of tired and they did not really knew what to do. It was like - "Shall we smile or look fierce, what we are supposed to look like?" - and my schoolmates looked the same, confused. It hit us like a truck. The responsibility.

Our turn was on Wednesday, Patricia woke up early, pretty nervous, and went to school. She did all exams in the morning and when I came, because I had exams in the afternoon, she looked immensely relieved. On the other hand I wasn´t relieved at all. I was nearly shaking. I went to pick my first question from Czech language. I picked Dostoyevsky´s Crime and Punishment. Thats wasn´t bad. But there was one minor error. When I went to prepare my speech, there was no pen. I had to literally stare at our teacher, to catch his attention and when he came, I asked for a pen. The person before me took the pen. I lost a minute, it also destroyed last shard of my calmness. 

Second subject was Geography. I picked middle Europe, particularly countries of Alpes. This is the kind of question you simply ignore, because you think you know enough, because you live there and other countries are your neighbours. I must warn you, this is definitely wrong approach. Surprisingly it went well, I only couldn´t recognize some old twat on a black and white photo (sorry Franz Joseph I. of Austria). The teachers even tried to help me but I was simply so shocked that I didn´t do anything. They basically said the name but it went over my head.

English was easy peasy lemon squeezy. All these hours spent playing videogames and watching TV shows finally paid off. I talked about young people and adults, I even joked a bit. This was the time I knew it was over. I felt relieved, finally. 

I went home with smile on my face, sun was shining, it was like it was movie. One big thing behind us, another one in front of us. 
See you later, read us later!  

Learning

Final Diplomas and us

 

Waiting for results + School Leaving Exam

Ugh, we completed most of the steps. It wasn´t that hard. Last thing to care about was our School leaving exam (Maturita exam). This kind of exam is pretty complex, it consist of two parts - written and oral part. My subjects were - Czech language, Mathematics, English language, Geography. I choose these subjects from one reason - they were the most simple. Just pass. I really hoped and maybe I was kind of sure that they will accept us in Denmark, so we only needed to pass and nothing else. 

Written part: Mathematics, Czech and English. 
First of all, English. We were prepared really well. Our teacher is just magnificent, she worked with us hard through the years and it all paid off.
Czech language wasn´t hard, even though there were some tricky questions. I was nervous as hell, because I knew that I am not a big friend with Czech language.
Mathematics was hell as well. The time limit was insanely tense, there wasn´t any time to think about it, you just had to follow the instructions. I felt like a robot. 

We did it!  And, most importantly, a week after first part of School leaving exam Patricia got accepted. That was glorious, I was really happy for her. And day after her, I got accepted too. We were thrilled. That was what we had waited for for a long time.

For next part of School leaving exam, read our next post. See you later, read us later!


 

The process

The last year was all just haste and confusion, but as I wrote in the previous article we were prepared, or at least we thought we were. Soooo, let´s make a list of what we had to do or what you will have to do to study in Denmark:

1)  HELP
We contacted Scandinavian study. It is an agency, which helps with all the required paperwork, they have lots of experience and generally, they have helped us a lot. You can choose from different packages, we choose "Smart" package, it cost us about 1600CZK. Our contact person was Aneta, she was friendly and helpful, even though it sometimes took her days to write us back when we needed something. 

Czech team - Scandinavian Study

2)  BUREAUCRACY
We scanned our ID cards and passports, scanned our report cards and translated them, got them verified by our headmaster, scanned them again, combined it into one file, prepared it into one folder, so when the registration portal will open, we can send it immediately. Ugh all that bureaucracy just started, and it will get worse. We got verification of number of Mathematics and English lessons (depends on the study programme). 

3)  COVER LETTER
We had to write a cover letter. Interesting cover letter, witty cover letter, thrilling cover letter. It had to show the school that we are exceptional, so they would accept us. So we tried to write one like this, we strived with this task for severel days, it had to be perfect, because cover letter is probably the main factor which devides the accepted from the rejected. And after few days we finally completed it. It wasn´t perfect or was it? Our feelings were mixed, the letters were great, but were they great enough? Now we know they were, but back then, we was afraid they are not.

4) OXFORD ENGLISH PLACEMENT TEST
Another challenge for us, the English test. We had to go to Prague and write a test, it consisted of two parts, grammar and listening. There were about other twenty people with us, young, eager students, they looked similar to us, hungry for more. Long story short, we did it. Our score got us somewhere between C1 and C2 CEFR level. We moved closer to Denmark with every step, we grew nervous, we could feel that we are close, but we were not there yet.

5) LETTER OF RECOMMANDATION
This one thing probably helped us a bit as well and it wasn´t hard. We asked our English teacher to write it for us and she gladly accepted. This little effort shows that you truly mean it with studying in Denmark, so you should definitely got a recommandation letter.

6) ART PORTFOLIO 
Portfolio is not necessary (or maybe it is for some study programmes like design or so). Patricie sent nothing, because you can´t have Logistics (her study programme) portfolio. I sent a small part of my seminary work, it kind of dealt with architecture and because I have choosen Architectural Technology, I decided to send it as well, whether it had some impact or not, we can only speculate.

Seminary work

7) OPTAGELSE
This strange word is a name of danish university portal. It opens in February and you have about a month to upload all documents mentioned above. Some say, that it is the best to upload the documents as fast as possible, but we think that schools usually wait until the closing of the portal. After we uploaded our documents, we could only wait and hope for the best. Until...

8) INTERVIEW
We got invited for interview. It was quite a long time before it happened. I had interview first, Patricie few weeks after. I had to go to the Prague one Friday. I knew I was prepared, I went through all the usual interview questions, I practiced with our contact person, I read all the informations about the school and the city and even though, I was terribly nervous. I arrived at the adress, I was the first one for the interview, I always want to have it done first. Interview begun and person from school (Torsten) greeted me warmly. It was rather pleasent when I recall it even though Torsten got me on the first question. He asked me what the weather was that day. I had to look out from the windows to able to answer him, because all the way from Liberec I only looked on my papers and generally my mind just wandered elsewhere. After that it went pretty smoothly and that was it, my next step.

Patricie had interview from home, they invited her few weeks after me, because her school was overwhelmed. In the day of the interview she looked nervous even though she practiced with Aneta and went through all the questions as well. I went for a walk so she could have a calm moment for herself before the interview and I came back when she wrote me that the interview was over. Oh my, she smiled like an angel, I knew that everything went well as she later confirmed. 

I took this photo while I was waiting for Patricie to complete her interview

We had to wait again to know whether we will be accepted. And you have to wait for the next post. See you later, read us later!

The idea

It all started about two years ago. I had very few ideas what to do with my life after the high school. I had some hobbies, I was clever, eager to learn, however I had no directions. I thought I was sort of lost, until the day I found a magazine called "Brainstorm", there was a big Danish flag on the cover. It looked tempting, so I read the main article. It was about the possibility to study in Denmark. The studies are in English, free and well, it looked like a great opportunity and challenge as well. I showed it to my girlfriend, Patricie. I was a bit scared of refusal, but she was immediately hooked. We knew that this will be our way and the main goal. 

From this point we were trying  to have the best possible results, because school reports (from 2nd,3rd and 4th year) are the first documents which schools look at. We were going to grammar school in Liberec so it was sometimes tough to get a good marks, but after all, we are clever, responsible and stubborn as hell, so who, if not we. With this in our minds, we completed 2nd and 3rd year with flying colours and we were ready to start our last year and complete the whole application process. We´ll tell you about it in the next post.  See you later, read us later!

Mathematics, the queen of all sciences

Patricie doing some chemistry in lab

Quote of the day

Microworld

Grammar school logo

The beginning

It´s official, we are going to study in Denmark. And by "we" I mean Ondřej and Patricie, two "adults in training" from the Czech republic. On this blog you´ll find information about us, about Denmark, about studying and about life as we see it, I hope you´ll enjoy it. See you later, read us later!