Classes at "Catho"

Sorry it's been so long since I updated here, it's gotten kind of crazy with classes in full swing now and this week with Anna visiting (more on Anna later...). As promised, here are my musings/reflections on French classes:

1. I learned during my placement test that most French students refer to the Institut Catholique de Paris as "Catho" - as in "What time are you done with class today - I'll meet you at the Catho." I also learned that French college students everywhere refer to their universities/campuses as the "Fac" (short - I think - for faculté). In addition to all of the French abbrevs, I also learned in talking to some new friends from Australia that they refer to their colleges/universities by saying "my uni" pronounced "you-knee". Needless to say, it's tough to follow along in conversations when even fellow anglophones (English speakers) confuse me!

2. My classes here are organized in a morning/afternoon block schedule. If you have a morning class (as in international student at the ILCF - this doesn't seem to be true of regular ICP classes) you have class from 9:00-12:00 with a 15 minute "pause" around 10:30. If you have an afternoon class, you have class from 14:00-17:00 (or 2:00-5:00 if you're like me and still not the best with military time) with the "pause" around 15:30/3:30. I've had the occasional 3 hour class - thanks to the Marquette education program - but it's been a huge adjustment for me to get used to having five 3 hour classes a week. On the one hand, it's really nice to get all my classes over with at once...but then again once I get to the second hour of my second class of the day I'm quite ready for a nap.

3. As far as the classes themselves, it's been an adjustment for me. Even though the students with me are all international students (one class I'm in has students from the U.S., Vietnam, Egypt, Germany, India, Columbia, Brazil, China, and Korea!), the teachers are VERY French. This is a great thing as far as learning the language goes, but can be very difficult when trying to decipher what they want from me as a student. Unlike American universities, we did not receive a syllabus with a calendar of all our big projects and tests on it the first day. Instead, we received a piece of paper with the course ideals or objectives - everything from the practical to the quite philsophical as far as why we are in the class. There is also less of a structure in place for the regular class. Unlike most of my professors from Marquette, I haven't had any professors here write an agenda or a plan for our three hours of class on the board or even go over something orally. Instead, they just stick to the plan they have in their heads (although I can't be sure they actually have one) and we just try to follow along. This can make note-taking very frustrating for me because we often return to the same subject several minutes later and my notes end up unorganized with lots of arrows and asteriks trying to help me make sense of them later.

That being said, even though it's different here in terms of classes, I'm still definitely learning a lot and really enjoying (most of the time) being in classes with students from all over the world and passionate French professors who are really experts in their subjects. In addition, because most of classes are very lecture-based, my French comprehension has been skyrocketing! Although I may not be as enthusiastic or excited for classes when midterms roll around, right now I'm really enjoying myself.

That's all for now - Anna and I are off on more adventures! I promise to put up an update on our travels too! Bisous!