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A new semester, two new studies and a new student job: welcome to the second semester of the 15/16 Academic Year. I am super motivated and ready to take on all challenges that the new courses have to offer. There are a few things to do though before the adventure begins:

Get new notebooks: Three of them to be precise: one for Stats, one for Clinical and one for my Thesis. The right gear will keep me motivated. I hope.

Geared up for the new semester.

Create new folders on my hard drive (and maybe run a backup?)

Find the Blackboard modules: Blackboard is a platform that most course coordinators use to make additional information available to their students. The first articles and reading lists are already online as well as important info about the course administration (Am I allowed to miss a class? Answer: yes, one if you make up for it with an assignment. What is exam material? Answer: this is a Master course, so everything is relevant! How is the course graded? Answer: 50% assignment, 50% poster presentation).

Sell and buy study books: facebook is your best friend and doesn’t charge you for selling your old study books. I am also selling books via bol.com sometimes, especially if I want to get rid of them right away and not wait for the course to be offered again next year. Buying books is sometimes easy (facebook again) and sometime tricky, especially if you want to spend as little as possible in the process. Bol.com and marktplaats are the obvious ones for second hand books. Then there is collegebooks.nl and geneeskundeboek.nl for Clinical books. And the study associations also sell books (Labyrint for Psychology). Sometimes they are the cheapest, sometimes not. If you order on amazon.de, you don’t have to pay shipping, so this is also worth a try. I am extremely lucky this semester though, my study books are available as e-books via the university library. Yay!

Facebook: find the groups that belong to your study. I had to contact a study mate via the International Students/Science Faculty group to get the link to my Stats group. Your groups might be easier to find. They are definitely worth the frequent notifications and can give you a head-start.