Recently, we had a mandatory mid-semester meeting for all the study-abroad students. The purpose? To make sure that we understood what our midterm assignments were in each of our various classes. Here are some memorable student responses:
- “The professor hasn’t told us what our midterm would be or when. All the syllabus says is that it is 33% of our grade.”
- “We have a 1.5 page paper, our choice of Russian or English.”
- “Our professor alluded to a midterm once or twice….”
- “We had a paper due last Thursday.”
(his classmate) “Uh oh…”
It’s hilarious that we had to have this meeting at all. And the depth of / clarity regarding our midterm assignments is laughable. I was, however, able to take advantage of the mid-semester meeting by verbally dropping my Freud class. I’m still auditing it, but I won’t have to take any of the exams. And I was able to do this eight weeks in without a single penalty.
Then, this morning, our grammar teacher gave us our syllabus. Once again— eight weeks into the semester. In any other context, I’d be surprised, but I’ve had two months to acclimate myself to Russian time.
(And thanks to Medvedev, it won’t ever be changing again!)
