Hi Everybody! I just finished my first week of classes Friday and wanted to give you all an update about how I've been doing. It seems crazy that I've been here for over three weeks now! Time has gone by so fast and now that classes have started it's speeding up even more. This week Glasgow really started to feel like home for me. Now that I've started really cooking for myself and managing my time it feels like I have a real routine. Anyways, I thought it would be cool to let you guys know about what I'm studying while I here (they call it study abroad for a reason right?).
So the Scottish credit system is a little different than our system in the U.S. Instead of taking my usual five courses I'm taking a full schedule of only three courses. This means less actual class hours than I'm used to, but not really less work. The kind of work they do here is just different than work at BC. At Glasgow class grades are based on up to three major assignments, usually tests or essays. The work is very self-guided; professor's give you a list of reading for the week or even for the whole semester and let you decide when to read it on your own. They also encourage a lot of outside study and additional research. At BC we aren't usually given as much freedom and the course grades are based on more than a few major assignments. So far though I'm really liking the way classes are run here, as a third year college student I feel like I have the skills needed to keep with my own work. I can imagine though that a first year university student would find it difficult to do this kind of work.
Another thing about university life at Glasgow is that students don't have a lot of choice in what courses they take. As a study abroad student I have a great opportunity that most students here don't have; I can choose basically any first level classes I want to take. With that in mind I tried to think about what classes would be helpful for my education major at home and what I'm really interested in learning about!
Public Policy 1a: Foundations of Welfare
This class is an introduction to social policy and the welfare state in Britain. In my first year at BC I took a class called Family, School, and Society, where one of the subjects we studied was the welfare system in the U.S. I think it will be really interesting to compare what I know about the welfare system at home to what I learn in this class.
Fundamentals of Education 1
This course is all about the history of the education system in Great Britain. Scotland has one of the oldest public school systems in the world and the history of how it has developed is so interesting! The class is different from anything I've learned in my education major at home.
History of Art 1
Unlike my other courses, History of Art fulfills one of my requirements at BC. The class counts for my study in fine arts, but that's not the only reason I'm taking it. The University has an art exhibit on site and there is a huge museum about 5 minutes from campus. During our meetings the class will meet at these exhibits in small groups!
Exploring Scottish Culture
Exploring Scottish Culture is a class held every other week just for study abroad students and it covers the basics 1000 years of Scottish history and literature. The lecturers for this class are really great and I'm excited to learn more about my Scottish heritage in the class.
See my life isn't all Cheesy Pop and sightseeing! Seriously though I'm really excited about my classes this semester. I know they're going to be a lot of work, but I really looking forward to learning new things that I could only study so in depth here!
- Sarah
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