(Study) Abroad

I guess I’m not just here to gallivant around Europe, find myself, and eat a lot of food. I do go to school, I promise.

University at UvA is a little different than the structure in the U.S. Though the school year is broken into semesters, you do not take a full course load for the full semester. The semester is broken into three blocks of seven, seven, and three weeks. I will be taking two classes for the first block and two in the second.

It’s a distinctive style of learning, though. These professors are essentially cramming a semester’s worth of material in half the time. I have lecture and tutorial (discussion) twice a week supplemented by outside readings. Or really, it’s the other way around. I have a lot more reading than I do at UMD and it plays into the new style of “flipped classrooms”.

There are also less grades than American uni. Final exams at UvA are 60% of your final grade, if not more. No pressure.

Part of campus

I have midterms this week, so hopefully I will have a better feel of what tests are like in Holland. Other than that, school is very similar. I sit in my unassigned assigned seat, have class discussions, and learn a few things along the way.