First Week of Classes

I am midway through my first week of classes at ICU. The classes I've been in so far seem very similar to classes I've taken at UCSB. I'm currently talking Introduction to Eastern Art, Sociology of the Family, Language in the USA, Literacy and Development, and Informational Design & Technology. Three of them (Sociology of the Family, Language in the USA, and Informational Design & Technology) I hope to apply to my Communication major back at UCSB, so when I return to school in winter quarter I'll only need one more class to complete my degree requirements. But that'll be a long road, because petitioning classes and communicating with your undergraduate advisor is a very slow and arduous process, and leads to the desired result half of the time. Which is why I avoid talking to my undergraduate advisor as much as I can.

Anyway, my classes so far seem interesting. I especially like my Intro to Eastern Art class, because art history is one of my favorite subjects. At UCSB I've taken art history courses in ancient art, the Renaissance, and modern art. It'll be interesting to learn about art from an Eastern culture.

My professor for Sociology of the Family is a brand new professor, and he told us that this is his first quarter teaching. I'm not sure if it was the best idea to tell us that. He seems like a nice guy, and he was born in San Francisco. But he kept calling on students randomly to participate, and I know no student in the history of my education who likes being put on the spot in a lecture hall. Also, when will teachers comprehend the fact that no one likes to "turn to the person next to you and discuss for five to ten minutes"? It seems that teachers' misconception that students like talking to people they don't know about a topic in which they have little vested interest is an international one.

A few interesting observations: very few students at this school use laptops to take notes. This is the opposite of UCSB, where about two-thirds of the students in a lecture hall have a laptop with them. This saves me from being distracted by a girl in front of me who is chatting with Nasty Gal customer service about how to return her size 0 skinny jeans during lecture. (Yes, that happened. Constantly seeing girls shopping for dresses during lecture eventually made me a front-row occupant in most of my lectures at UCSB.)

Also, in the hallways, all the students walk on the left side. Same thing on the stairs. Since cars drive on the left side of the road here, I assume that's why students walk on the left side of the hallway. I'm sure it's the same reason why students walk on the right side of the hallway in the US. It's something I've had to adjust to, as walking on the right side of hallways has become an unconscious act.

One of my favorite observations: the students don't start packing up their things until the professor is done speaking. This may seem second-nature, but at UCSB students often start subtly rustling together their papers, snapping shut laptops, and zipping up backpacks a whole five minutes before the class time is over. Sometimes the professor even has to tell the students to stop and be quiet.

I'm only halfway through the first week, but I'm enjoying being back in the classroom. I've always liked going to school and learning new things, and I'll be sad when my last year of school is over. But at least I get to spend a third of it in Japan.