The first few weeks of uni can be stressful wherever you go. There's a fair bit of paperwork, modules to choose, people to see and places to go, though you probably don't know where these places and people are. However, the UPMF (Universite' Pierre Mendes France) is making me appreciate the University of Dundee so much more.
The first day of intro week was just dreadful. We got lost trying to find where to matriculate as it was different for French and Erasmus students. The people we asked were generally very nice to us, but unfortunately they all seemed to give us the wrong information. When we finally found where we were supposed to be going, the forms we had to fill in were quite difficult to understand. There were a couple of nice people helping us though so it all worked out in the end. We were then told that we would receive our student cards soon, maybe by the end of the week. It took just over a week, but we finally got them. They are basically pieces of folded up coloured paper with our details and out photos stapled to them. It's a good job we got them because you need it for several things, such as the 'inscription' for the library and getting your tram card. Though if you ask for an 'attestation' confirming you're a student there, then you can get some of these things done already.
We then had a week of 'methodologie' classes. Being a politics student in a law school, these were kinda lost on me but I went along anyway just to test my understanding of French. We were also given timetables with all the law modules on them and were told that we had until October 10th to choose them. There's actually not much choice for European Studies and Politics students. However, we also found out we could take some modules from the Institute de Sciences Politiques so that's made us feel a bit better.
The first lectures have been alright to understand, but i've found it difficult to take complete notes as the lecturers seem to go pretty fast, and there's no powerpoint (how I miss Dundee :-( ). Most French students take notes on their laptops and they are frickin quick typers. For a couple of lectures i've tried to strike up conversations with a few of them and casually ask if they could send me their notes as there were a couple of things i missed. So far, they've been quite nice about it.
For each semester we need 30 ECTS credits. We can now do a French as a foreign language course and get 6 credits per semester for it (or so we've been told). Other modules are generally 6 credits in the law faculty or 4 in the politics faculty. In total, to get the right amount of credits, i've worked out I need to take 7 modules (including French) this semester. Again, I miss Dundee. Though acutally it's not too bad as a few of my modules seem to cover a couple of the same things.
I'm a bit worried about exams though. Apparently my degree mark will be based 50% on the marks I get here and 50% on the marks I get in 4th year in Dundee. So I really want to concentrate on doing the best I can here. One of the lecturers told me that the exams are written, but for Erasmus students they are oral. I've been told that that's easier and hopefully that turns out to be true.
No comments:
Post a Comment