School Daze

This post is dedicated to the “study” portion of my study abroad experience. I’m taking five courses through my program’s study center, all of which will transfer back to Home State U for my interdisciplinary humanities major. A brief overview of each follows:

1) La Santé Publique (Public Health) – taught in French by a professor maintaining a VERY active research program. It’s not unusual for him to receive quick phone updates during class, and he already canceled class once and had us do our first end-of-the-unit exercise without him. There are quite a few people passionately interested in health policy (hi Kate!) and sometimes we go off on interesting real world tangents about latrines and cholera.
2) Wolof Language – While French is the official language of Senegal, Wolof is the most commonly spoken African language (my host family usually only switches into French in order to talk to me). My instructor is actually 39, though he doesn’t look a day over 25, and does impressions of Americans learning Wolof for us. He complimented me on my “Senegalese accent,” which mostly consists of thoughtfully considering each question even when I’ve only learned one response. Jenn’s laughter helps to keep the period going.
3) Advanced French II – This course is causing me to question my desire to keep studying this language. My professor quickly “reviews” before testing us over grammatical issues no one has ever really learned before, like tenses used only in formal literature. I’m learning quite a bit, but its right after lunch and the format leaves a lot to be desired.
4) History of Colonization/Decolonization – I found my humanities analogue to Mammalian Physiology. This professor is moderately interesting, but I still have plenty of time to doodle, do creative writing, and otherwise entertain myself while listening to him (I guess I’m a kinetic learner after all). Some of the readings are interesting, but others are just. so. dry!!! I did my presentation on French colonial policy before World War I yesterday and felt awesome – Alicia’s moral support helped! Years of debate/forensics and a semester of teaching have done wonders for my presentation style. Isaac doodles wildly and I create interpretations of his creations.
5) Le Sénégal Contemporain – I’m really trying to figure out what exactly I’m supposed to be learning in this course. It is organized around units such as Religious Beliefs, trying to explain several aspects of Senegalese society and culture. We go on lots of field trips, watch movies, and listen to guest speakers. Our classroom lacked air conditioning for several class periods, which didn’t help, and we never seem to get to the assigned readings. But I did just hand in a 2.5 page paper in French, so it gets points for productivity.
While some of my courses are graded on the American model, with a percentage assigned, others use the French system of a note between 1 and 20. It’s not an exact mathematical system – 18 means “I can’t believe I’m giving you an 18” and 15/20 is not a C. More information forthcoming on this front. However, as in the United States, I’ve figured out that finding a fun classmate makes everything better. K and R helped me get through O. Chem last year and are still some of my closest friends. It is my blessing to usually befriend someone very strong in each of my subjects while I remain more of a generalist. I’ve started to get some assignments back, and a good summary would be: “It could be a bit better, but it could’ve been SO much worse!” I have a semester…