A day in my life

Long time no see, am I right?
I do have an excuse. It was finals week. That's also why I chose a somewhat easier blogpost: "a day in my life". But it is one of the most effective ways to give you an idea of what my life is like here anyway, so I'm sure you don't mind. Right?

Some background

The courses

First of all, you need to know that I have 3 different courses: Economics of Social Issues, American Civilization History and Geology 101. Those probably sound very interesting to you, but I actually don't really regret my choices. Economics and History have helped me to get a better grasp of the American way of life and their ideology  and during my Geology class I got recommendations for beautiful national parks all the time (sadly, it's also a matter of getting there, so I haven't seen any of them, yet).

The classes

A class is usually about two hours, two times a week (only for Geology I have one additional lab). You can do the math and find that I have indeed quite a lot of spare time, but those are mostly filled in by doing the readings and other tasks. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have 2 classes, the other days I have only one class. But, I'm gonna repeat again: most of my spare time goes to studying and doing readings -so far I magically avoided all the classes with a lot of essays, though.

Why study so much?

You might be wondering how I can spend that much time on just studying and I can explain.
First of all, for my Economics class we have a test every single lecture, this way the professor kind of forces us to do the readings and keep up with the material.
Secondly, my History teacher is pretty bad. At least for me his teaching method doesn't work. He just reads his lecture notes and uses a powerpoint with all the information, but doesn't post it on Blackboard, so you HAVE to copy it, because he talks way too fast to understand him anyway. That's why I always made sure to do the readings before class, so I would at least have an idea of what he was talking about.
Thirdly, we (usually) have multiple midterms for one course and they are a major portion of our grade (almost as important as our final). This keeps you pretty busy throughout the whole quarter (oh yeah, our university also works with quarters instead of semestres, so a lot of the courses are fairly intense).

However, I have to admit that I don't need to study as much as I'm doing right now. My grades are quite good (I already told you the story about my 110% for geology in a previous post) and for the first time in my life I can call myself a "straight A student". 

The schedule

I chose to write about my last Tuesday with classes, because the other days I mainly just studied, so that would be pretty boring. Though, still don't expect anything crazy, it was the week before finals after all.

Without further ado, let's dive into my typical Tuesday.

8:20 AM

Reluctantly, I get out of bed. It takes so long, that I don't have time left to comfortably take a shower before my class. I eat my breakfast while watching some kind of YouTube video and I go to my class.

10:00 AM

My Economics class starts. We get a lengthy explanation about Social Security and how it is not in danger and won't disappear any time soon. Who knew, right?

11:40 AM

Our class ends earlier, so I can't go straight to the commons to get lunch (which is what I usually do, since it is literally on the way from the lecture hall to my dorm). Instead I go to my dorm, after talking a bit with some friends who take the same class, and pack my backpack for the afternoon.

12:00 PM

I go to the commons and get lunch with one of my friends. Once we're finished (and we take our time, because she wants her money's worth), I go to the library to study with another friend.

4:00 PM

My Geology class starts and I regret not getting coffee before going there. I decide to not take notes, because it's something we already learned last year ("geologic time"). Instead I just listen (and try to keep my eyes open), while absorbing the information needed for the pop-quiz in the middle of the lecture. It's probably the most "badass" thing I did all week.

5:50 PM

The lecture is over and I go to the commons on my way to the dorm, because this lecture takes place in the same room as Economics and it is kind of dinnertime. In the dining hall, I run into one of the people living in my dorm building. We chat over dinner and on our way back to the dorm. 

7:00 PM

I go to the gym with the library friend. Once we're both done, we promise to meet in the library again after taking a shower.

9:00 PM

We meet in the library and I manage to finish reading my History textbook (1154 pages, covering the colonization of the Americas all the way to the 2012 elections).

11:00 PM

Very happy with my achievements that day, I crawl in bed. 

As you can see, my life here probably isn't that different from yours (or the life of other Belgian students). And if this all sounded very boring and grueling, then I can assure you that the main reason that I studied so much during the week is so I have spare time in the weekends to explore my surroundings and hangout with friends.

-N