school school school

I realized that I never updated on the classes that I’m taking this semester, so I thought I’d do so now. I decided to take one less than I’d taken last semester since, on top of work, I felt over-loaded. Thus I’m taking five classes, with a conference section for one class making a total of six class periods a week. Every class period here is two hours long, therefore I have 12 hours a class a week. Not only is this less class time than we have at Colorado College (which comes out to a total to 15 hours a week, not counting lab classes or time on the baca campus), but also it means that over 12 weeks, you only get to a total of 24 hours of class time for any given class. This is where the biggest discrepancy lies - at CC, you take a minimum of 45 hours per single class, almost double that at Sciences Po. It’s been very interesting for me to see how this difference plays out in my experience as a student. 

So far, the conclusions I have come to are:  At CC, you get much more time with your professor, gleaning and gathering tidbits of wisdom from his or her extensive knowledge and experience on their topic. At Sciences Po I would love to have more time with my professors, even just to sit and listen to them. With an exposé or two every class and sometimes a press review (during all of these fellow students have the floor and the teachers is quiet), teacher to student wisdom-transference time feels remarkably small. However, I find that Sciences Po has made a much more independent student out of me. Every exposé probably takes me around 20 hours of work total. Having to speak in class and, most importantly, to defend my presentation to the class at the end when everyone can ask questions, forces me to prepare extensively. Furthermore, Sciences Po is a big institution, and many of the teachers are teaching in their spare time and do not consider it part of their duty to teach you the basics (even though these are basics that they will grade you heavily on), and that at CC are often communicated to you in every class. By basics I’m referring to how to find resources, how the library works, what a “problematique” is, how to format your presentation, bibliography, etc. While the professors are very helpful when you need clarification, it is, or maybe just feels, harder to get in touch with them when you can’t count on running into them in Worner three times a day.

Ok these are the classes I’m taking this semester: On Mondays I take “Approches des Extrémismes en Politique and “Le Changement Politique en Russie”. The first one is about the study of the rise of extremist parties in political systems, with a general focus on France and then some other regional case studies. I’m doing an exposé with a friend on the National Anti-Capitalist party in France. The teacher is super eccentric (and wikipedia tells me he was a child actor) and wants us to go to rallies and meetings and get interviews of party leaders so that should be cool, I’ve never done anything like that for a class here before. The next one is about modern politics in Russia and is quickly becoming one of my favorite classes. Especially since I’ve never taken a class on Russia before, the class material is always new and exciting for me. The teacher is, on the contrary to the last one, very Sciences Po meaning super intense and serious and rigid, but he definitely knows what he is talking about. I’m doing an exposé on the second war in Tchetchnia (sp?) in the 2000’s. Tuesdays I have a conference for my lecture, and a french language class. Wednesdays I have my lecture, entitled Coping with Multipolarity in American Foreign Policy. Essentially it’s learning all about the recent history and currently changing foreign policy in the US. While there are a fair amount of obnoxious american government buffs in the class, I’m liking it and did an exposé earlier this week on the role of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby, in shaping American Foreign Policy. It is the only class I’m taking in English. I almost didn’t take it since I wanted to do an all-French semester, but there were no French lectures that worked with my work schedule. And I’m happy to be in this class! It’s so helpful in understanding current events and it gives my brain a little breather from French classes. Thursdays I’m taking a class with the loveliest of ladies Mademoiselle Camilla Vogt, a friend from CC who is taking classes at SciencesPo part-time with me this semester. We are taking a class called “Géopolitque de l’énergie” about energy politics and global energy management today, as seen through an economic and a political perspective. Camilla and I are doing an exposé together entitled, “Is there a resource curse?”. Love having a class buddy! This class is very interesting but also challenging for me, since I have such a limited economics background. I think it’s a good reminder that I should devote more time to understanding all this crazy money business everyone’s always talking about...

Thats’ my jabber on academics for today, and probably for this semester. Paris and Colorado - two amazing and opposite experiences. I’m loving everything Sciences Po has given me, and taught me, as a student, and may try to come back here for grad school... but that’s to think about in the far future, I have another year of colorado living to soak up first.

gros bisous mes amis, 

ariella