Today has been good so far; I’ve just spent the morning in a lecture hall going over the procedures for registering for classes. It’s really different here, not just based on the lack of online registration, but because you can drop classes up until the 10th of November! We were also told that finals schedules for students only staying one semester can be arranged, so that is beneficial for me, and I will be discussing that with the appropriate people in the coming weeks.
And as for my schedule… The list of classes was enormous, we’re essentially allowed to take any class offered during our time here, but the downside is that most classes only meet once a week for 2 hours. These once a week classes are 2.5 credits each, and since I’m supposed to be taking between 12-18 credits I’m taking 7 classes! On the othe hand, it’s not bad because I’ve built a schedule that permits me to travel. I have no class on Friday, and my class on Monday is at 4 pm.
The downside to all of this is that I have classes for 4 hours on multiple evenings. But the topics seemed interesting and I think that they’ll transfer well, there are enough upper level courses and the topics are broad enough that I can fit them into my requirements (cue slightly evil laughter) but I will admit to being frightened by the concept of 7 classes. At Purdue, I usually took 5, and these classes would meet multiple times per week. That made it bearable because we generally didn’t go over as much each day, but if we plan to cover a comparable amount of subject matter in a semester while only meeting once a week for 2 hours then this could get interesting with 7 courses.
The courses I have listed as of right now are:
Monday, 4-6 Introduction to Political Science
Tuesday, 2-4 History of International Relations
Tuesday, 6-8 History of Modern Political Ideas (This class exists at Purdue)
Wednesday, 2-4 Politics and Public Actions in Europe
Wednesday 4-6 The French Republic since 1880 (This can be a French history class)
Thursday, 8-10 (am) Europe and International Crisis (How do you pluralize that?)
Thursday, 4-6 Constitutional law of the European Union
We’ll see how it goes!
Later note: Awww shoot. I need to add two more classes in order to be considered a full time student, or at least that's what Katie said. But she's only in 5 classes. I'm going to look at my stuff again...
The plural of crisis is crises. More later.
ReplyDeleteYesterday felt like fall. There have been mornings that felt crisp and days that were unseasonably cold, but yesterday smelled like autumn. The sky was uniformly sky blue. There were no clouds painted across the sky. No haze to dampen your spirits. And no hint of of the cold, gray days that lie ahead come October.
ReplyDeleteYesterday was glorious. The air spoke of fall and the trees responded by shedding their most weary leaves. There is little hint of color with the exception of the few yellow leaves that have floated to the pavement where they have been pulverized by traffic. I cleaned the back porch and part of the parking lot because the leaves were being tracked into the house. It was to no avail.
Klara and Milan went to Irish Fest last night. They brought two of their roommates from Lafayette. They were both nice young men. One is a Fulbright scholar from Croatia. The other is from Bloomington and he's studying nuclear something or other. The young man from Croatia said he felt like he was in a movie when he woke up to hot coffee and Garey playing the piano.
Your class schedule looks unusual. I guess you can get used to any schedule, but once a week for two hours is different. But come to think of it, that's what Wan Seung does with his Saturday morning class. You'll get your share of French and European political science.
I'm assuming that you're all set for Paris next weekend. Study hard and enjoy the trip. We're taking Bailey to the Symphony tonight with Alexis.