First Day of School

(Warning: Journal entry.)

Yes, my classes just started today. I love France.

Well, my real classes started today, you could say – my CUPA program course (art history: 19^th century French painting) and atelier course (figure drawing, in an independent studio in my arrondissement) already have, but the other three courses are at Université Paris VIII – St. Denis. It’s about an hour metro ride from me, which doesn’t seem that bad in this context since it’s on the metro and I’m used to factoring in a half hour/forty minutes for getting pretty much anywhere, but when I think of being back at Georgetown, wow, an hour commute to classes? It was enough to be “off-campus” and have to bear the 15-minute walk. It’s so different living and going to school in a city – perhaps I now can get a sense of what non-campus city schools like NYU and GW are like. Plus, in France, as we’re told, campuses aren’t as much of a home for students at all – besides not actually housing them, they’re more like just stops that have to be made during the day; where you come, take your class, and leave. There isn’t a connection to one’s university like there is at home in the US. There isn’t all that school pride and varsity sports teams and tradition and social events and all that make us so homesick for our universities in the states; that make our campuses become more home to us than where we’re really from.

Anyway, St. Denis isn’t um, the nicest area, but the school is pretty cool. They offer a lot of really fascinating sounding courses – many of which I didn’t sign up for because I was either afraid to take a high-level course in French or unwilling to take anything at remotely inconvenient times, including days like Thursdays and Fridays (ha) – and have all the departments I’d consider taking classes in. Hardly any of the other universities had a psychology department.

So here are some thoughts/notes from my first day; already some differences between the French system and what I’m used to are vividly apparent:

I arrived to my first class (Psychologie de la Santé) (santé = health) a half hour early, with something to read; I’d left myself plenty of time to find everything and see how long the metro journey was. I was surprised to see about 15 other students already there this early. It’s a good thing I got there though, because by the time 9am rolled around (when the class was supposed to start) (I had to concede and take one horribly early class), 30 or 40 more had piled in, and the last 20 or so had to go across the hall and grab tables and chairs from another room. The extra tables and chairs were packed so close to each other and to the professor’s desk that there was barely any space for her to speak, let alone sit down. I didn’t like this because I’d chosen a seat at the end of a table near the door, so I could get up and leave as inconspicuously as possible if I needed to for any reason, but now there were chairs placed in every possible space so that I’d have to make at least four people stand up to worm my way out of the room.

The professor finally arrived at 9:20, and it was not the professor listed on the course offering. Nope – that’s it. She didn’t even know the guy who everyone had expected to see. She then said something I didn’t understand and everyone got up, so I followed suit and realized we were moving to the room across the hall, which I didn’t think was much bigger, and it wasn’t, but at least we all had seats and table space now. So by the time we actually got going, it was closer to 9:30 – fine by me if that’s what happens every time, considering it’s a three hour course.

So, some things that surprised me: the first thing she did without saying anything about the subject was say that there would be a written final exam but that we could also choose to do an exposé (oral presentation) instead, and asked for a show of hands for who’d like to do that, and asked those people to come see her during the break and sign up. I mention this as surprising because it’s pretty much the first thing she said, at home we’d be given lots of time to decide what we wanted to do, and lots of information on each of the options before having to choose one. And we certainly wouldn’t be choosing our topics and dates on the first day either. Moving on… During class, a student said she couldn’t see what was written on the board, and suggested the teacher borrow her dry-erase pen since it was red – and she took it and used it – this is just interesting because it makes it seem like there’s less distance between the student and professor, as if she’s on the same level as we are, which is the opposite of what I’ve been told about French professors. I guess it varies. This was confirmed at the break, when everyone went outside and put their coats on and lit up a cigarette – including the professor. She smoked and talked with the other students, and looked like one too. Funny. We came back in after 20 minutes and in the second half, the students were talking to each other so loud – while the professor was lecturing – that sometimes I could barely hear what she was saying (ha, let alone understand it). I was amazed at their audacity – blatantly leaning over, joking around with each other, laughing, clearly paying no attention – and then it was the strangest thing, they seemed to know when she’d say something important, and everyone would get quiet all at once, and start taking notes. Hmm.

The three-hour course wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was, but maybe that’s because it started late…

I headed to my next three-hour course straight after, which started at the same time this one ended. Thankfully this one also started late. This professor carried herself very differently: she told us straight off, don’t talk when I talk, and this is an exchange: I spent time preparing a program for you, so do your part by cooperating with me.

This was Sociology de la Ville (of the city). The first thing she had us do was write down a list of words we associate with “city”, and then she had several of us read them out loud, and after the girl from Columbia went, whose French was far more terrible than mine, I was sufficiently encouraged to try, and read my list a few people later. Seems like a really interesting class, though it also seems I’m going to have to work! I suppose that’s kind of the point – I forget that sometimes nowadays.

Here are some pictures of the inside of my new favorite bathroom – haha – that sounds really weird but seriously, this bathroom is very interesting – it appears the wallpaper is very amenable to suggestions and additions, most often in the form of captions.

This one I like - according to the artist, this woman is thinking,
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