I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to my introductory class; it was in an old farm building on the outskirts of campus, next to the stables (and yes, there were horses). As I climbed up the stairs with my friend from Korea who is in the same programme, I felt like I was back in Ireland among the whitewashed stone houses. The room we were in was drafty and spacious, I could barely hear what my four professors were saying. From what I understood, this was going to be a very different academic system than any I had experienced before. And indeed is has been an experience!

My schedule changes every week. I only have one course for a five week span of time. I don’t necessarily have class at the same time or same place everyday. Sometimes I only go to class twice a week, other times I have class 4 days a week. Some classes are 1 hour, others are 4. Some classes are lectures, others are discussion oriented. But one thing is for sure: the professor will always be 15 minutes late. Apparently this is completely normal too. The first day of lecture, my Canadian friend and I were grumbling about how the teacher was late and the Swedish guy next to us explained that in Sweden, that is the custom – it is referred to as “the academic fifteen”. Students are expected to be on time for class, but the teacher has 15 minutes to wander in to class before we can start to complain. I am growing accustomed to this though, and our 15 minute coffee breaks after every hour of class are nice as well. It feels like I’m never in class, but when I am, I feel like I am learning in a much more productive way (for my own learning style) than I do in one class back in the states. Today we went through several hundred years of European political history in two hours! And my teachers have been to and have worked in developing communities around the world; this was their life’s work before they became teachers. It is so fascinating to learn from people who have actually lived in these situations and witnessed them first-hand. I also appreciate that the first thing they taught us was that there is no one right way in our field of study. Because it’s true – industrialism has not worked for the majority of the world as it did for Europe and the US, so how can we expect that to be the only way to develop other nations. And we have also been looking at what it means to be a ‘developed nation’. I am always so interested in everything in class… And I should probably stop now, before I bore you all to death with theoretical development and the political history of Europe 🙂

But today was the first day I realised I was the only American in the class. There are at least 70 people in this programme and I am the only American. And the States aren’t exactly the most well-liked country in the world right now; as I learned today, we have a very small portion of the world’s population, but use at least 50% of the resources. Not that I didn’t know this before, but before I was surrounded by other Americans, guilty of the exact same thing (whether we mean to or not, we all are) and now I am a minority. I felt so incredibly guilty for the rest of class and hoped he wouldn’t call out any Americans in class to discuss this and I would be the only one to answer.

Despite that strange feeling, I thoroughly enjoyed class and cannot wait for tomorrow, although it is another 3 hour lecture. I’m sure my two coffee breaks will tide me over though!

-Maren