Putting the "Study" in Studying Abroad

A central part of the orientations exchange students are required to attend before embarking on our adventures is quite simple: remember to study while you're studying abroad. Sounds obvious enough right? But the goal of most exchange students is to travel and see as much as possible, so in retrospect I am thankful for the reminder. Especially since my workload over here for only 3 classes will probably be equivalent to the workload of the 5 classes I'm used to taking each semester at ASU. I have noticed that over here that the majority of "lecturers" (if you refer to them as professors you get strange looks and people laugh at you) are HUGE fans of the all-students-need-to-read-a-LOT-before-each-lecture concept. At ASU professors know full well that when they assign outside readings, only about 7% of their students will actually make the effort to set up camp in the library and read. While I haven't received the official numbers yet on my "Do-you-read-everything-or-slack-off" poll, so far it looks like just about everyone over here reads at least half of the outside readings. And talking to the other American exchange kids the general consensus seems to be that over here students are responsible for a large percentage of learning. Kind of a "self-study" method, which is a little different than the way things are done back home at ASU.

We are in our second week of school here and I almost have my routine down. It was a little stressful getting registered for class and making sure the "time tables" don't over lap. So after some stressed out nights and a very slow registration process, my classes are Medical Cell Biology, Winning the Peace: European Literature and Film, and Mother Ireland: Representations of Women in Irish Literature. Each class consists of a lecture and a seminar. Seminars are made up of extra time for the lecturer to have workshops, hold discussions and student presentations. Here is what my class schedule looks like:

I am super excited though to only have class Tuesday-Thursday! Four day weekends will make it easier to explore and not miss class. ;-)

Another difference is the size of the campus here. At ASU's main campus in Tempe, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to walk across campus, even further if you are lucky enough to have lake view parking in Lot 59. So while I was expecting that campus to be smaller, I was shocked when I learned that there were only two main building where classes are held. Here are some pics of the campus!

This is part of the central building where I have most of my classes...


Here is another view of the central building. The covered walk way is definitely nice when it is snowing and raining like it has been this week.


I'll try and take more pictures of campus while I'm here. I don't have too many so far because I'm really trying NOT to be the dorky girl with a camera walking around campus and taking pictures of everything...I'm fairly sure the students on exchange here from Hong Kong have that department covered. ;-)

BONUS: While I've been here I've been keeping a list of funny sayings and all of the just plain weird stuff they say over here via the stickies application on my macbook. Here is what I have so far...

• The Fire Department is known as the Fire Brigade
• A closet is referred to as a cupboard, as in "electrical cupboard"
• A "stone" is roughly the equivalent of fourteen pounds
• The word "Yous," as in "I hope yous had a good time."
• Referring to University as "Uni" (I spent a good 3 days on this one trying to figure out what my house mates were talking about)
• French fries are called "chips"
• Potato chips are called "crisps"
• The elevator is referred to as the "lift"
• Instead of saying thanks, most people just say "cheers"

Spellings over here are different too, which will make it super fun when I'm writing papers for class. For example...

• organization vs. organisation
• theater vs. theatre
• eukaryote vs. eucaryote

That's all I have so far but I'll keep them coming as I hear them!! :-)