Classes

I didn't go to class at all last week because we missed Monday and Tuesday classes thanks to our orientation things, and there was nothing interesting on Wed-Fri on the schedules they had given us. Classes work like this: You declare your major before you get here. Your schedule is practically made for you; you're required to take classes with everyone in your major each semester, and then you can pick a few from a list of required electives for that specific semester. So instead of having your own personal schedule, you just follow the department schedule; that's posted on bulletin boards in the hallways of the building your department is in. Exchange students can take whatever we please, but they don't make it easy for us and give us all the schedules; we have to go to every department, get a schedule and course descriptions, and figure things out for ourselves.

Most of the classes have no attendance policy. If you want, you can just show up at the end of the semester and take the exam. People come and go as they please. Professors just don't show up sometimes, or will cancel that day without warning (where have I seen this before? Definitely a French thing). You're supposed to check the boards before every class, it seems, because they'll also change the rooms without warning.

Sunday night I made up a schedule that looked pretty interesting and fun. Yesterday, however... well it was definitely interesting. First was Grammaire Ancien Français (Ancient French Grammar). Being the geek I am, I was totally excited. And then we got there and even though I understood all of what the teacher was saying, I had no idea what the material was. She was going through cases of nouns and how to stress syllables and open and closed syllables and things I vaguely remembered touching on in grammar school. It was frustrating. Went to lunch at the Resto-U. That was also frustrating. There was a line to buy tickets, and by line I mean everyone mobbed in front of the ticket counter. The line to go downstairs to the actual dining hall part was way too long at this point, so Juli and I went with Claire and Sarah (both British) and an Italian girl whose name I didn't catch (but it's the equivalent of Cindy, I think?) to the sandwich counter. Those were pretty good. After our 1.5 hour lunch break (!), Sarah, Cindy and I went to a Linguistics class, taught by the Grammar teacher. Same deal; I knew the French, but the technical terms drove me nuts. Following that I went to a beginner Latin class, not realizing that it was a second semester course. I talked to the professor before class started and explained that I was an exchange student, missed last class, and had never had Latin before. Long story short, she said I'd be behind, but if I wanted to put the work into it I could stay in the class and she'd give me last semester's work to catch up on. I said no and left, but I'm thinking about emailing her now and taking her up on the offer. We'll see.

Today I had four classes scheduled, but none of them met. Whee! Apparently no undergrad classes met because there was an open house or something? So I canvassed the boards again and I'm changing a bunch of my classes. Dropping Grammar for Ancient and Biblical Cultures. Possibly dropping that Linguistics class. Picking up some Psych classes. And hoping it all works out because I don't want to change my schedule again. What's killing me is that credit at VCU is based on the hours you spend in class (15 hours = 1 credit), so in order to get 12 credits I need to take 12 classes here since most only meet 16-20 hours per semester. Not. Pleased. Mais c'est la vie.

And now, round 4 of attempting to create a schedule. Hopefully I figure it out and get to go to classes tomorrow. >_>