School Day

I've now been to every class. My schedule looks something like this:

Monday

• 8 AM-4PM: Transportation Engineering (Lectures, Tutorials) (this meets every other week)
  
• 4-5 PM: Operations Research/Mathematical Modeling (Lecture)
  

Tuesday

• 2-5 PM: Society and Environment (Practical)
• 5-6 PM: Operations Research/Mathematical Modeling (Lecture)

Wednesday

• 2-3 PM: Operations Research/Mathematical Modeling (Tutorial)
• 5-7 PM: Ragtime Dues to Hip-Hop Blues (Lecture)

Thursday

• 10-11 AM: Society and Environment (Lecture)

Friday

• 10-11 AM: Society and Environment (Lecture)

It's strange, coming from a school where everything is so rigidly scheduled, to take classes that appear to have been scheduled by a drunk toddler throwing ninja stars at a bulletin board. I am baffled. On the one hand, it's probably fewer class hours per week than at Swarthmore, which is nice. And since I'm coming off a semester in which I had an 8:30 class every weekday, I am fascinated by the concept of starting my learning at 2 PM two days per week. Whatever will I do with all of this free time? (Answer: homework).

Of these four classes, there is only one that seems to approach what I'm used to in a college course, and that's Operations Research. My instructor is endearingly nerdy, gets excited by doing clever math tricks, and has twice in four classes worn the department t-shirt, which features the words "On the first day God said" followed by scores of complicated equations and integrations and derivations and the words "...and there was light." He also says "inverted commas" instead of "quotes."

My engineering professor is frustrating. Since the class only meets once every two weeks, he sped through the material, dismissing entire powerpoint slides as "common sense" and punctuating his descriptions with "blah blah blah" in order to save time. Essentially, he dumped several weeks' worth of material on us and left it to us to pick out the usable information. When it came time to do the tutorial questions, not a single person could do them unassisted because of the way in which he sped through the lecture material. I can't say that I'm looking forward to our next meeting.

CLICHE WARNING! I feel stupid saying this, but this does make me appreciate Swarthmore. Yes, it's a lot of work, and yes, sometimes I just want it to stop, but at least I know that I'm learning something, that my professors care enough to fully explain what is going on and make sure every student actually understands the concepts instead of just the equations to get answers. That's not what I signed up for. I know it's only been a week and that it could change, but hey, you know, this is what I'm feeling right now.

The other two classes are filler, essentially, and are meant to give me a break after two (!) full (!) years (!) of craziness. They'll do it. I enjoy them, and neither really requires a LOT of work. Come on, I get to listen to music for a class! That's wonderful. Overall, I'm happy with my choices. Despite their shortcomings, whatever they are, I know that this semester really isn't about academics. What I learn in the classroom will be useful, for sure, but even more important will be what I learn outside it.

(Hey, foreign study offices! Feel free to use those last two sentences in a brochure or on a web site or something! I don't mind! Cheesy phrases are my speciality!)