Academic Year (学年) at Newcastle University in the UK

If you’re staying with us for the next academic year, you might be wondering about term dates and assessment (测评) periods. Here’s how the next academic year will look.

Term 1

There will be a one-week training course on the week beginning on 18 September this year. Teaching on most programmes will start on 25 September.

Teaching in this term will last for 12 weeks, with an enrichment week, allowing you to stop and think of your learning, or to explore new skills. During the enrichment week we’ll be running many events for you to take part in.

After the Winter Break, there will be a two-week assessment period beginning on 8 January next year, followed by a one-week break from 22 January.

Term 2

Teaching in Term 2 will begin on 29 January and will last for 12 weeks, including a revision week, allowing you to focus on your studies and to catch up.

The assessment period for Term 2 will begin on 20 May and will last for three weeks.

Term 3

For our students on Postgraduate Taught programmes, Term 3 will begin on 21 June and finish on 13 September.

My friend and I decided to go to Italy for a holiday and we decided to travel there without going through a travel agency. You know, you would be submerged（淹没）in crowds of tourists and lose lots of opportunities to get familiar with the country more closely. We started to think over our trip and managed to come up with a free tour of Italy.

The trip was not very long but it was still very pleasant. We look forward to going there again! Of course, we spent lots of time arranging the trip, but it was well worth it! Of course I was afraid that something would go wrong and I was especially anxious about my visa, but everything went quite smoothly in the end.

The most difficult part was getting a visa without an invitation. In the Italian consulate（领事馆）, one must hand in some official paper proving that one has a hotel booked for oneself in order to get the visa. Then we had to solve the ticket problem. Airlines often sell cheap tickets and we bought ours far in advance. The next step was to book a hotel. We finally booked a hotel about 30 km away from the heart of Rome and it was the perfect choice for our trip.

Every day we took a train that carried us to the heart of Rome. Our big house, which was surrounded by the forest, was a rare place for the fresh air and complete silence, beautiful views, hospitable hosts, comfortable living conditions delighting us to no end. Besides this, we were very lucky that our mistress, was Russian. She gave us a lot of advice that was of great use. She recommended us what transport we should choose and which best places we should go to.

Don't be afraid to plan your trip by yourself. It's not difficult! The only thing I'll say right now is that we really enjoyed traveling by ourselves. We walked with a map and a guidebook to wherever we wanted and we even met some of our fellow countrymen on the way just two or three times. So if you're also planning a 'single' trip, don't forget to take a Russian-Italian phrasebook as people in Italy prefer to speak in their native tongue.

A bunch of strangers showed up at the gym in the early morning of the last Sunday of April. A few athletes were already stretching their arms, but most of us could barely focus. As I was burning off last night's wrong decision—a big meal, I spotted a poster about a gym's 21-day workout challenge, and I immediately signed up. I always wanted to train for a marathon, so I considered this as my warm-up. Besides, I needed to stop being lazy and this was my chance to make a change.

It was easy to promise on paper, but three weeks of recommended exercise routines and diet restrictions wouldn't be easy. I stuck to working out 30 minutes a day, and I didn't disturb my normal routine. Instead, I had to be faced with the tough work of being more creative in my spare time, thus breaking some bad habits.

Overcoming weaknesses with willpower was my goal for the next part of the journey. But the difficult part about making a challenge is realizing that “wanting" and “doing" are two very different things. Just like a career, you have to physically work for it rather than just wait for it to happen. But that's hard. Throughout the 21 days, I often told myself that the challenge was meaningless and tried to sabotage myself from exercising. However, finally I overcame that negative thought and kept working out.

At the end of the challenge, I learned something even more important: Feeling the results is better than seeing them. I had fewer headaches and more energy, and was simply happier. I even felt a little smarter as I researched which foods were better for my body, and learned how to make healthier meals. I felt a sense of accomplishment, too, because even though I wanted to give up dozens of times, I didn't. I felt my waist got smaller and my arms got stronger, and I no longer felt guilty after having a piece of cake or a drink.