Things so far…
Well, first year - first term of English Studies in Malmö University is like this.
It’s officially two terms in a year but I can say that we have four. We are supposed to take three courses in first term but instead we take first ten weeks for one course and ten other weeks for two other courses.
First term, first ten weeks: Subjects of English.
This course divides to three: Personal Life Writing, Professional Writing and Speech & Drama.
Personal Life Writing
The course simply has four assignments and some “bonus” assignments if the lecturer feels for it. I personally like the extra work given time to time, they usually don’t take much time.
I won’t give much details but the first three assignments were: describing an object that triggers a memory of your childhood, writing about a hair cut and last, writing a piece discussing a moment of your life that was part of the process of realizing that “there is more than one way of looking at the world.” Most of the people didn’t understand what they should do about the third. However, examples are always given about the things we are supposed to write. So first you read Jamaica Kincaid for example, and write about the same thing. She wrote about the door or the books for example, but through the object she reflected her childhood from that age. So you do the same.
Personally, I enjoy the course as it is but of course some things can be better.
I won’t go into much details I said before, so skipping to the next:
Professional Writing
Again, we get four assignments. First you interview a random fellow student in the class and the assignment is to write an introduction about the student you’ve interviewed (it’s supposed to be like an article…) Second, to write a covering letter to a job. Third, to write an individual questionnaire about what do students do in their free time. Fourth, to write a report about the questionnaire result.
Worst thing that happened is between third and fourth assignments, a group work to make a “super questionnaire” from the individual ones. Let me tell you what can go wrong, you expect people to actually be able to do such an easy work - they can’t.
Speech and Drama
As understood from the name, you read plays, you analyze the plays before the class, you read it our loud in the class - and train your speech. Get a better voice, talk talk talk!
We read Fatboy, Othello, Desdemona, The Boor… The exercises we do in the class are actually entertaining! A creative lecturer.
We had the first class representatives + a lecturer meeting yesterday, and I think that was just weird. Sometimes I thought some people wish for weird things like not coming to school in January for an exam or two (Well sorry but the system is like this, do you wanna change whole Sweden?) and me, for some reason asked for being little more nature friendly. We waste a lot of paper! The lecturer always behaved like he is offended or something. He said he likes to correct things in paper and some students agree it is nicer but hey isn’t this a representative meeting? I represent the program I study and you represent the coarse you teach, but I’m not the only student and you are not the only teacher. I would like to hear a simple sentence : ” I personally prefer this and that but I can carry the message to other lecturers and they might try if they want.” Instead of such a “negotiating” he just said “I like this, Do the students ask this because of “green” concern or because they are lazy to go to the printer?” Seriously?
Another thing I asked was to get information about the electives that are to be picked in the second term of second year. He asked why would I need the information this early, we are still just at the first term of first year and I answered “because if you want to study abroad in non-European schools on that term as an exchange student, you need to apply already” One of the students said that we’ll get the information on good time and I replied “Well, I already applied to study abroad, the deadline was last Friday, and I still have no information about our electives. It is important to have the info so people can decide if they wanna seek exchange studies or stay here and select electives here” And then the lecturer asked something weird, maybe I got him wrong. “Is this about you being a non European student” Did I get it wrong? He had a mocking smile on his face??? I replied as I’m a Swedish citizen and it’s nothing about it? I just applied to exchange studies at non European countries? That was China and U.S.A because unlike my own lecturers, their lecturers could provide information about whole of the education and I liked the courses that I can study there. I wonder why couldn’t he just answer why the information is not there,if it changes from year to year or something. Why couldn’t he come up with a reasonable answer?
Felt like he just sat there and mocked us, i like this i like that, why are you asking that….
Is this about students being lazy to go to the printer? Is this something about you not being an European citizen?
Eh?
What a waste of time!
