Well I've been absolutely horrible about updating my blog for the last 3 weeks, but I think I'm going to try now to be more regular about it. It would be kind of impossible to try to remember everything I've done in the last 3 weeks, so I'm just kind of going to forget about them and start recently, haha.
This week classes at the Universidad Católica de Argentina started - everyone here calls it la UCA. (We get to choose classes from 4 different universities in the city). I registered for I think 6 classes, and ended up actually trying 5 of them this week. It was kind of fun actually to see how the university system works here, and it was something new to do, and also new people to meet. Not sure if I'm going to end up staying in any of my UCA classes...I couldn't understand the professor very well in one, another has a really bad schedule, another is really dull. I do like one class a lot called Economía del Desarollo (Development Econ), and I might end up taking that one, kind of just depends on how well I like my classes at the other universities (which start next week).
Some noticeable differences in the university system here:
- No eating in class. We were told that to eat in class here is akin to smoking in class in the US.
- Speaking of smoking, it's allowed in university buildings, so people before class are always lighting up, or smoking in the bathroom or whatnot.
- Classes last generally 3 hours or more, but only once a week. Yikes, my attention span (especially in another language) is not that long!
- Just in general, wayyy more disorganized. Much much much much more disorganized.
- Less comfortable that university spaces in the US ... we all have great common spaces and student unions and cafes and things like that, but it's rare here and where a cafeteria does exist its small and uncomfortable. Also, no comfortable chairs in their libraries!
That "disorganized" comment has been pretty universal between you, Ash & Linds. I think it just shows how less relaxed Americans are in general than other countries! (Well, maybe except for Germany. And Austria. They strike me as pretty rigid.)
ReplyDelete