(My) Studies at TUB

Studying is hardly the main activity of an exchange student. However, besides the limit given by KELA, TUB also sets a minimum number of credit units. I think it was 11 or 12 local credits / semester. I don't know what happens if you fail to study enough -- maybe they make you stay for another semester ?^)

To be accepted as an exchange student, one must make a study plan. The bulletin of TUB is online, so that's not a problem. (And now the International Center of TUT has my copy of the printed bulletin.)

Here's my study plan. I wasn't too lucky with my courses. (All the links that once were here got rotten, so I removed them. A newer curriculum might or might not contain equivalent stuff.)

• Programming Paradigms, 5 cu: there was a typo in the bulletin. The course is lectured only in the spring semester.
• Information theory, 5 cu: I happened to take a corresponding course at TUT the previous spring, so there wouldn't have been much sense to take it again. However, Otto said it's a good one. Not too easy like most of the courses.
• Computer Architectures, 5 cu: This course didn't fit my schedule. The lectures were at the same time with Operating Systems. I might have taken both courses by going to every other lecture of each, but meeting the teacher for the first time made me skip this one.
• Operating Systems, 5+1 cu: I wasn't too satisfied with this one. The course was too easy, and the computer lab was a joke. We were supposed to have programming exercises with MODULA 2 concerning mutual exclusion, playing with threads and things like that. Instead, we were learning the basics of Unix, stuff I had learned at TUT in my very first semester. The English of the lecturer was ok but could have been much better. And it was quite difficult to make notes since he hardly used the blackboard.
• Control Theory, 5 cu: Last but not least, this course was excellent. The course covered a wide range of continuous and discrete control; the lecturer's English was about perfect and the labs weren't bad either. We were using Matlab and the control toolbox. The exam and midterm exams were something I've never seen before. See below, it was just unbelievable. Or the problems were just normal, but the exam situations were weird. The course hashad also a web page (http://www.aut.bme.hu/studinfo/targyinfo/jegyzet/contheor/) with lots of information.

So, I was left with just eleven credits. However, I hadn't noticed the Hungarian and Central European Studies program. In the first week at TUB they introduced the courses (also in bulletin) to us, and most of them seemed really interesting. I took only a Hungarian course and an introduction to Hungarian Culture. One could have taken e.g. creative writing, Hungarian history, Hungarian music and some courses dealing with the economics in eastern Europe or ethics and technology.

I liked both the Hungarian and the Hungarian Culture course. For the language course one could select between four and six hours/week. I had four and had to skip two of them every week because of my computer lab. I could follow well enough anyway. There are two teachers, and I would recommend the tanárnő. Hungarian is not too difficult. See the links or this page.

The culture course was especially nice. We just sat there and she would talk and talk and talk and talk. The course had no exam but we had to write on essay of nearly any topic. I wrote mine about the architecture in Budapest. Deadline was "before leaving" i.e. January 6th in my case. I started writing as early as Jan 1st. I didn't enjoy the last week too much. I also drew some pictures, but couldn't put them in the essay 'cause the staff of an internet cafe screwed up the scanning, and I didn't want to lose the originals.

Final Schedule

During the first week the time tables were finalized. One could take any new courses or omit some of the ones selected before, so that the study plan wasn't so important after all. Here is my schedule. There's enough free time.

Studying at TUB

Going to school was pretty much like in Finland, despite that the lectures were obligatory, in theory. I guess. The groups were quite small. On most courses there were less than ten of us.

At least the courses I took were made too easy. I heard that the level of the courses for exchange students is adjusted so that the students from the third world without much prior education can attend them. Furthermore, the most interesting courses are for the M.Sc. degree and exchange students can't take them. Bother, says W-the-P.

I had three exams in December. Had I taken more courses, probably some exam would have been in January. The Hungarian exam was like any language exam, testing grammar, vocabulary and listening comprehension. It wasn't too difficult. The Operating systems' exam was more difficult, since it had nine problems in only 3/2 hours. I had time to finish 7.53.

The exam in control theory was a weird experience. There was absolutely no peace to concentrate on it, because everyone was talking all the time. There were some 10 guys from Turkey and Cyprus, and they were cheating so openly that in Finland they would have been dispelled from the school immediately. They were talking, walking in the class copying answers, passing papers to each other etc. I had to let one of them copy one of my (correct) answers 'cause he wouldn't keep silent otherwise. All the teacher had to say was "please don't communicate". The exam itself (4 hours) and its problems were of high quality.

Best part of any of the exams was that the results came quickly. For example, the control theory exam was in the morning and we got it back in the afternoon (about 30 students).

One more note on exams. I think it was odd that the students had to bring their own blank papers to the exams. Apparently they haven't thought how easy it would be to cheat. Or they just don't care.

We had to tell all the teachers to give our results to Eszter. She promised to send the record to us. Mine should be here real soon now. [They came on the second week of March]

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