Classes Debut & International Dinner

Hello all my lovelies,

This week has finally marked the beginning of school work. Amazingly, however, I have still only had one class to date. The way the semesters, classes, and credit systems run here is unlike anything I could've imagined. Back home all the classes start within a day of each other, finish by the end of December, and they are either worth 3 credits or 1.5 credits. Here in Belgium, the semester runs until the end of January, classes stagger start, and the classes can be worth anywhere from 2-6 credits. It is a really strange conversion! 3 courses at my home university equates to 18 Belgian credits instead of 9. I'm talking 18 Belgian credits, getting credit for 3 courses, but in actuality, I'm taking 4 classes. Thank goodness for academic advisers - I'm not sure what my transcript will look like after this but at least it is up to them to sort it out and not me!



Given that I do not have a management background in the slightest, it has been really challenging finding classes that are 1) taught in English and 2) don't have impossible prerequisites for a non-management major. I have finally settled on Entrepreneurship (5 credits), International Marketing (5 credits), International Strategy (3 credits), and a beginner French  (5 credits) language course. The courses provide you with a final grade out of 20.

As I was saying though, the courses seem to stagger start. Although classes officially began last week, my entrepreneurship courses only started yesterday, International Marketing starts next Thursday, International Strategy starts next Tuesday, and the French course starts in the first week of October. Even then, some classes don't run every week and some courses don't run for the full semester. My entrepreneurship class is only 6 weeks long. It is supposed to be 4 hours every Thursday but the professor informed us he'd never keep us longer than 2 hours give or take 15 minutes. He also mentioned that he would work us extremely hard. However, there doesn't appear to be any exams in his course. There are 6 two page assignments and a final project worth 70%. As far as the two page assignments, he informed us that he would randomly select 20 and read through those to make sure the class was on the right track and that would be that.

It is definitely going to be an absolutely crazy schooling experience.

Already the entrepreneurship prof seems to be quite a character. He likes to shout at late comers and tells fairly entertaining stories. From what I've read about him, he has quite an impressive CV. I think there will be a fair number of life lessons to be learned from his course. He's one of those profs that seems to pass on experience - not just theory.

Last night was the International Potluck Dinner. It was a really unique experience. All the erasmus students got together and brought a dish native to their homeland. Some of the countries definitely put in some absolutely phenomenal effort! Unfortunately, the only uniquely Canadian dish that Chelsa, Kiersten, and I could come up with was Nanaimo bars and despite our best efforts, there was just no way we could locate all the ingredients. I will never take Canadian grocery stores for granted again as they have an absolutely amazing selection compared to the stores here. In the end we made several dips up, grabbed some Canada Dry Ginger Ale (which we were absolutely shocked to find on the shelves) and chips. To my surprise, one of the dips got absolutely demolished. Alright Canada! The American students brought what I would normally consider fairly standard and basic cuisine but darn it if they didn't actually impress the international students. Bee made rice crispy squares, K Sweet and Tennessee made, no joke, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, and tex mex tacos and got rave reviews.

There is just no way to describe the food from the other various countries. The room was set up really well with tables lining the walls and flags of all the various countries above the tables. So many familiar and unfamiliar flavors, things I will never know the names of, but overall, a really impressive turn out and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves and have a lot of fun with their dishes.

Tomorrow marks the Bouillon trip with the ESN. Can't wait!

Love to each and every one of you,

Jacqueline

PS: I've been told there are some new readers on the blog. Welcome! Please feel free to leave comments :)