"If you have the chance to take a year abroad - do it"

Swansea student Maddy French is nearing the end of her time on her year abroad. Currently studying International Business Management, Maddy was offered the chance to take an optional third year of study outside Swansea within its partnerships with various institutions across the World.

Maddy chose to go to De Haagse Hogeschool, The Hague, Netherlands over America and Canada as she wanted to have an authentic experience. I recently spoke to Maddy when she briefly returned to Swansea just before the Easter holidays to see how she was getting on.

'How can I get my blog noticed?'

Courtesy of  e-junkie.info   

I like many others before me have decided on the concept of starting up a blog to give the real view of a student’s life. Many consider a blog as the place where thousands of voices can flourish, communicate and connect. Nevertheless, you want your blog to be successful, a place for people to continuously visit. So, many bloggers are left feeling ‘why is my blog not reflecting its best potential?’ 

With over 100 million active blogs in the world, there is stiff competition to make sure your blog stands out from the crowd. How do you achieve this? What can you offer that the other 100 million cannot?

The answer is simple! In order for your blog to get noticed, there are several marketing techniques which I have come across which can help benefit your blog and bring in those all-important readers!

Will the iPad 3 live up to its expectations...

Crowds gathered across the globe earlier this week to get their eager hands on the highly anticipated Apple’s new generation iPad device “iPad 3” which was launched across 9 Countries on Friday morning.

Two years after the debut of the first iPad, the devices launch has become the second biggest “gadget event” of the year, after the annual iPhone release.

Courtesy of EPA.

Thousands as predicted lined up queuing outside Apple stores across the World on Friday morning. As like the previous models, the public have taken well to the launch of “the new iPad”.  In New York, around 750 gadget fans battled plummeting temperatures waiting outside its flagship store. The NY Soho store had already sold out of black 16GB model by 8:30am.

 Experts did not expect the amount of people to queue outside Apple’s 5^th Avenue store. Some potential purchasers took the plunge of camping outside up to 48 hours prior to the launch.

People were also making money off their places in the line. Amanda Foote, who camped for nearly 48 hours, received an offer of $1,000 for her spot, behind only two other customers - but was hoping to collect even more for the coveted position.

Amanda Foote (Pictured left) who sold her spot in the 5th Avenue queue.
Courtesy of Bradford Noble.

How to live your student life to its fullest

Your time at University is a once in a lifetime experience. It’s the place where you get the key to your gateway to the future and may possibly meet your future husband or wife.

However, you must take every opportunity given to you – academic or simply just fun related! Here are five possible ways on how to live student life to the full based on my University experience.

Ultimate Festival Experience!

With Festival fever just around the corner… all you festival goers are currently debating which festival(s) you should attend this summer. 

The Questions you may be continuously asking yourself and your friends may run along the lines of…  “Which festival will have the best entertainment?” or “Which festival is best value for money?”

 So what festival am I going to recommend to my readers? Read on to find out….

My experiences of Valentine's Day...

So yesterday was one of my least favourite days of the year: Valentine’s Day. February 14^th for me is just another ordinary day which over recent years has become over commercialised sending out the wrong message to people.

February 14^th is not the only day you should lavish your partner with love – there’s three hundred and sixty four other days of the year to do this!

I am not one of St Valentine’s biggest fans. However, during my time at University, I have had three totally different experiences which I have shared with different people on each occasion.

During my first year of University, I had a boyfriend who I had been with pretty much since I began my degree. I had the stereotypical valentine’s gifts consisting of a rose, a humorous card and some other little gifts. Yet you would think if he got the presents right…he would get the date part of it right….Wrong!

My ex-boyfriend decided that our ideal Valentines date would be to take me to Weather spoons and buy me the burger and drink deal. Note to everyone: Before getting with someone – make sure they enjoy a variety of foods and are not one of the World’s fussiest people. Let’s just say that relationship did not last long after that…

My second Valentine’s Day at University consisted of getting very drunk at Oceana at the weekly student night entitled: ‘I Love Mondays’ or in the case of Valentine’s Day: ‘I Love being Single’. I lived with two other girls who were also single, so therefore it was the perfect excuse to go out and basically get trashed. Surprisingly from what I remember it was a very packed nightclub!

This year, I decided I did not want to make any effort at all towards Valentine’s Day. I currently live with another girl and three boys and only my housemate Lauren is currently in a relationship. Some friends and I decided to celebrate being single and embrace the ‘independent woman’. So last night we had a girly night in with lots of junk food, wine and we pampered ourselves. We only had one rule for the night: ‘Nobody mentions the V word’.

Who needs a man in their life? When a girl just needs the company of her friends!

So those have been my experiences of Valentine’s Day at Uni. What experiences have you had? I would love to know :)

Five blogs about student life

     ‘By Mimi…’ 

‘By Mimi…’ is written by a twenty year old Journalism student from Cardiff University who also is one of my dearest and oldest friends. Mia has had a love for vintage and Hollywood icons since our Secondary school days. Originally named ‘Fashion by Mimi’ Mia blogged about her take on up and coming fashions and detailed accounts of her work experience’s for fashion journalism. Mia now has branched out offering posts referring to culture and lifestyle Mia’s blog is very informative and very easy to identify with, with clear detail of what her blog is about and her intentions. Mia has used a pastel colour scheme demonstrating how serious she wants people to take her blog. ‘By Mimi…’ has a simple yet coherent design which is very easy to navigate. However, the lack of multi media disadvantages this talented blog. The blog would get much more recognition if it included some audio or video.

Score: 8/10

     ‘Nielsen Cerbolles’ 

Nielsen Cerbolle’s blog is a mixture of news and student views from the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham. Nielsen’s blog is very informative in terms of providing a vast array of content which would be greatly beneficial if I was from London or currently residing there as a student. The design is very catchy with a sense of a metropolitan urban feel, showcasing images we relate with the hustle and bustle of London. The website is easy to direct with the navigation links at the top of the page. Nielsen knows how to quickly capture his audience by using headlines which make you want to read on. I also like how Nielsen has used his blog to capture an initiative he is part of which is raising awareness of the benefits of cycling and coordinating it into his blog posts.

Score: 6.5/10

   ‘My Open University Life’ 

My Open University Life is about a 32 year old family man’s desire to start studying again whilst juggling his wedding stationary business and family life. The blog details the plan of what degree he is hoping to achieve and also how he is going to get it. The blog has also built up a community where other Open University students can write reviews about the courses they have studied, sharing their experiences with other students. The information is presented very clearly and logically, with different pages for different areas such a page dedicated to the plan of how he is going to achieve the degree. Again the blog has a simple yet sophisticated element to it which would reach out to mature students who want to familiarise themselves with people going through the same situation as them.

Score: 6/10

    ‘Student Life Blog’ 

Student Life blog is everything I want my blog to be and hopefully achieve with it. Its tagline claims to be the ‘No. 1 Student Life Blog’ and from what I have seen I agree with the claim. The blog hosts a variety of areas to do with student life ranging from Money and Finance and relationship advice to a careers section for those nearing the end of their University life. The design and layout is very basic, sticking to the plain background and default black text combination but it works great for this blog due to the fact it wants to be taken seriously with students. I also love that there is no visible advertising which also adds to the blog being taken seriously by students.

   

     Score:  7/10

  ‘University Lifestyle’ 

Julia is an architecture student who started a blog to find her own style, a place which she could reminisce on the evolution of her life since starting college. Julia’s blog stood out for me as although her native language is Spanish, Julia posts primarily in Spanish, but also opts to include the English translation on the majority of her posts which helps her reach out to  a much broader audience on the internet. The design and layout is simple for the eye and creates a sense of the type of person Julia is. I really like the use of photography on the blog as each post Julia writes is placed around a photo she has taken which creates a lot of hype and curiosity. The one downfall of this blog for me has to be the amount of advertising featured. For me it clutters up the sidebar and takes away the simplicity of blogs design.

      Score: 7.5/10

 ‘University, Life, Music and The Internet’ 

Jack is a Twenty year old student who lives in New Zealand. A Second year at Wellington University, majoring in Film and Media Jack uses his blog to retell the world about the random interactions of his daily life while also including other content such as film reviews and showcases some of his University Assignments. Jack’s content would interest people who are into their films and like to communicate with similar minded people. The information however is not presented very well with all the posts continuing down the home page. The blog would benefit from having pages dedicated to the different areas Jack likes to blog about. The colour scheme is very dark which demonstrates that Jack does not want his blog to be taken seriously and been seen more as an outlet to express himself on his own free will.

       Score:  4/10

What do you think of these blogs? If you would like me to check out your blog comment below  :)