Today was the FIRST DAY OF CLASSES at PUCP! Since I am an
international student, I get to go to a bunch of classes and try them out and
after a week decide which of those I am actually going to take.
The classes on my slate for today: History of Peru:
formation to the 18th century (in English) and Arqueología (in
Spanish).
I was worried of having flashbacks to my horrible experience
with am 8am class at UNC first year, as my History of Peru class began at 8am,
but for some reason it wasn’t terrible?? Apparently 8am’s are better abroad……
Anyway, the class itself sounds really interesting. We will
be covering a huge chunk of time, from the Neolithic Revolution (thousands of
years B.C.) through the Spanish colonial state. I am especially excited to
learn about the ancient Andean cultures! The class is in English, and I was
honestly expecting it to be just foreign students, but there are a lot of
Peruvian students taking the class to improve their English! I really like the
professor – he is really funny and clearly really cares about the subject.
My other class was Arqueología. I had thought that it was
going to be in English but….SURPRISE it was NOT! However, I could actually
understand 99% of what the professor was saying and so I think I will probably
stay in the class! In addition to learning the basics of archaeology in general
I think we will be doing a unit focusing specifically on the Andes which will
be really interesting!
These two girls from Norway who I met on the first day were
in my Archaeology class! One is named Edan and the other is Ana Kine. After
class we met up with some of their friends – 3 Peruvians, another American, and
a Canadian, and went to a VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT right across the street from
the university! It had a lot of fake meat which usually isn’t my favorite but
it actually wasn’t too bad! We ended up hanging out for several hours, and
taking an informal second tour of campus led by the Peruvian students. The most
important thing we learned on this tour was how to get photocopies of all our
readings made at the copy center on campus. Here the norm is for a teacher to
assign readings from a book/books etc. but you are not supposed to buy the book…..you
go to a place on campus and they photocopy all your readings for you. Seems
dubious on the legality side but…..when in Rome (Lima).
I was talking with Ana Kine about how university works in
Norway – IT IS FREE and you only have 2 days of class a week. BUT THE MOST
IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THAT SENTENCEIS THAT THEIR UNIVERSITY IS FREE!!! So
jealous! She was scandalized to hear how much college costs in the US haha.. OH
ALSO THERE ARE REINDEER IN NORWAY.
Even in Peru if you go to a state university it is only
about $2,000 (although apparently the public universities have huge problems
with strikes and political unrest). The US needs to get it’s stuff together….
The whole day was spent speaking in Spanglish…..if someone
was listening to our conversations it would probably sound so weird!
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