Oh that's right... I have classes.
This is going to be a long, rather boring post without pictures, but let's not forget that I am in school here...
Figured I should give a little academic run-down on the sitch here. It's very different--much more so than I expected it to be.
My courses are as follows:
Exchange students are capped at this sized course load, but full time students here take somewhere between 8 and 12 courses each semester. That seems impossible, until you realize that some of these classes only met for 6 or 7 2-hour sessions throughout the semester. Furthermore, students also include in their courses some things like painting, or soccer, or theater, that are more atelier courses than academic work.
Nevertheless, I have less work here than I would at home, by far. Fortunately that means that I can spend time travelling, spend time going to all of the talks here and getting involved in extra-curriculars, and putting more time into the classes I am taking... which is most important for me for Arabic. It's a fascinating dynamic in the class, because I much more need to work on vocabulary (you know, so I understand the words we're reading...) whereas the Arab students know all of the vocabulary, but don't know some of the grammar I learned in my first year. Things like case endings in iDaafas, or after haruf al-jarr, or that nominal sentences are divided up into the khabar and the mubtada. I was surprised to see the simplifications they used for these sentences like "after 'inna' the first word is monsoob and the second word is marfu3..." I'm sorry, I know that doesn't make any sense to the people who don't speak Arabic, but it's basically just an oversimplification of the grammatical concept there.
That said, I was definitely struggling with the texts we read. Fortunately, I had the time to go through and translate, and take notes on, texts that would take them ten minutes to read. And I was always able to ask the Arabic speakers on campus for help. Not to play favorites, but if we're talking about who's closest to fuSha, I found that it was the Saudis, Yemenis, and Iraqis... followed by the Lebanese/Palestinians. As much as I love the Moroccan dialect (darija), I still have problems understanding it, even after studying in Morocco. But I liked that the professor, Ababou, was Moroccan, because it meant that even though we were in a fuSha course, he smiled every time I replied "wakha" for "ok."
The Library
Well, the library is pretty much non-existent. It's been slowly getting better this semester, since they've just moved into the building. But still, the library is probably around 2000-3000 books, and is about the size of around 4 Frist classrooms put together. It also closes every day no later than 8 pm, and often earlier if there isn't someone there to work the book check-out desk. The entire campus is closed on the weekends and on national holidays (which included the day before finals started). Also, while you can order books from the other campuses, even the Paris library isn't anywhere close to what you would get at Princeton. The good thing is that pretty much all of the books are on politics/law/religion/economics/the Middle East and the Mediterranean/Europe, so the percentage of books that you may find relevant is probably higher. Also, don't assume that because the book is assigned for a class, they'll have a copy in the library... nope. There are quite a few beautiful tomes in Arabic. Too bad my Arabic isn't anywhere near good enough for me to slog through them.
Honestly, the lack of academic resources such as the library has been my least favorite part about being here. If you're studying here DO NOT FORGET TO SET UP THE PRINCETON VPN before you leave. Having access to those online resources saved my life and my sanity. People here haven't ever heard of JSTOR. They have some kind of French equivalent for it, but the selection (especially in English, of course) was far more limited.
French Courses
The courses here, especially for first-year students, are much more of the style where the professor stands at the front of the class and lectures at you. These lectures are occasionally interrupted by indignant students from whatever country is being discussed vocalizing their beliefs that ______ isn't actually the reality in _____ country. (In Lacroix's Crise et Espoir class, I don't think the Moroccans ever agreed with him). The thing is, it's not really clear who is right. This is partly because the lecture isn't based on studies or readings, but is a synthesis of the professor's understanding of the situation/region. Which is great when you're overwhelmed by a lot of information, but also forces you to take the professor at his word. On the other hand, the students' experiences are often not much more representative of the situation in the entire country. Most of the students, particularly from the Arab world, come from affluent backgrounds, live in nice areas of the biggest cities, grew up going to very Western schools, and often have families involved in politics (ambassadors, ministers, etc). So when they say that "no one feels tribal affiliations anymore," I take it with a grain of salt. Especially when they go on to say that well, maybe there are "family" affiliations, and say that these families can vary in size up to thousands of members.
So... few readings in the course.
Then there's the grading. Depending on the course, I've had between 2 and 3 graded assessments (paper, "fiche", exposé, test, etc.) per course. All grades are given out of 20. A 20 is impossible to get--they're just not given. These students, the cream of the French system crop, have told me that they never even got 20s in high school. You can imagine how thrilled I was to get an 18 on an Arabic final essay. (hint: suuuuuper thrilled) Generally anything about about a 15 is an "A". But here it seems like grades are given much less value as long as you're passing--because with 10ish courses per semester and only one or two grades in each one, people do fail courses. I think if they fail 2 they have to repeat the year. Passing is a 10/20, so right now, during finals period, the end goal for most people is just to "valider" the class. People are going around saying "I need a 4 to validate," or "I need a 6 to validate." It's a very strange concept.
Then there's this whole issue of form versus function... the French looooove things to look pretty. As I was making an outline handout for Wars of Memory*, my partner stopped me and said "No, you have to have two bullet points under this heading, because you had two bullet points under the other heading." I just stared at him. Also, I've seen people turn in 10 pages papers where I swear to God half of the pages were taken up with headings. They also like when you put pictures in your essay. I don't understand. I really just dont understand.
Also, don't expect very much discussion in your classes. As I said, mostly just lectures, some discussions among the more American-style professors.
Ok now I've complained about classes here for long enough, let's talk about the good aspects of the school...
1) A whole different viewpoint: the authors they read here are different, the things they expect you to know are different. I'd never read Weber before, but he's been cited repeatedly in every class I've taken here. Ghassan Salamé has also been cited repeatedly, and he's pretty impressive: he was Director of Research at the Centre nationale d'études scientifiques, and now he's Director of Studies at Sciences Po. He was also Minister of Culture, Education, and "Enseignement supérieur" (which I guess translates to something like university-level teaching) in Lebanon. Anyway, reading all of these different authors (because even if they're not all assigned, I had to go read them to get all the references) very much broadened my academic foundations.
Similarly, the history that most people know off the top of their heads is very different from what we know. We can talk to you all about the Civil War and the American founding fathers, but here the history of the Caliphates and the Roman Empire is really widespread. The Italians, unsurprisingly, have a particularly strong affinity and appreciation for history. I say that with some bias, because it was one of the first things that attracted me about my boyfriend... he started throwing out the names of Roman senators and emperors like they were days of the week.
2) Language and code-switching. Professors are much more comfortable throwing in cultural and language references from English, French, and Arabic here. So when we're talking about Yemen, they'll note that the main square of the protests was "Taghayir" (تغيير) Square, which means "change." Or while they'll also note the king of Morocco as the "Commander of the Faithful," he's also caller "Commandeur des Croyants," or "Amir al-Mu'miniin" because those are the terms for him in Morocco. Also, there are students here who either don't speak French or don't speak English, so for them the common language is Arabic. So in things like dance practice, they'll suddenly switch. While I still have a hard time speaking it back, I actually understand most of it, at least enough to get the gist of the conversation. And through simple things like a line we sing in our dance, I've learned a typical Arabic wedding blessing. (يبرك الله عليها، وربي يهديها, which means "May God bless her and guide her"). Not only has speaking three different languages all the time improved my ability in these languages, it's also generally kept me on my toes and kept me alert.
3) Outside of the class there are more benefits. The most striking one that I've seen is the generally negative view of certain facets of American politics, which forces one to clarify and prove one's own beliefs. I'm among the first to say that I see the mistakes and the injustice of American action in the Middle East, but never once have I truly believed that the U.S. orchestrated or permitted the 9/11 attacks to justify going into the Middle East. I have always considered those conspiracy theories that didn't really deserve my time. However, after being here and seeing so many people who believe them, and having them ask me about so many specifics that I'd either never heard or never bothered to investigate, I realize that I have a duty to find out those answers. I still don't believe that the U.S. planned/permitted the attack, but one of my personal goals for this summer is to write a thoroughly-researched paper doing as much as I can to prove that. Then at least for myself, I'll know what to say next time someone brings up the Michael Moore documentary to me.
As an American abroad, you are most definitely a representative of the country. My favorite exposé (class presentation) this semester was one I did in Arabic on the American Constitution. Yes it took me forever to find the terminology and try to clarify some of the ideas, but when we're talking about a region where so many countries are questioning their own constitutions, I was both proud of ours and excited to be able to share everything I find so wonderful about it. The U.S. is really quite rare in its adherence to its Constitution and the foresight of the Founding Fathers. Even the French Constitution only dates from 1958.
I commend you if you've read this far. For a treat, here's the Lip Dub that we created for the end-of-year inter-campus competition (Minicrit)!!
------------------------------
*Rant: I take plenty of French classes here, along with other non-francophone students, and we never speak in English in class, or get words translated into English for us. But in the English classes, students regularly switch into French to ask questions, professors show videos in French without subtitles, and we included on our outline translations of words that are normal for anglophones, but that would be challenging for francophones. Words such as "steed," "doth," "dost," and "scions." Granted, the French in class never really bothered me personally because I speak French, but really it's the principle of the thing...
This is going to be a long, rather boring post without pictures, but let's not forget that I am in school here...
Figured I should give a little academic run-down on the sitch here. It's very different--much more so than I expected it to be.
My courses are as follows:
- Arabic Level 3+ (en français et bien sûr en arabe, avec 3 étudiants arabophones de 1ère année, et deux étudiantes non-arabophone de 2ème année, enseigné par professeur Farid ABABOU)
- Islam et Mondialisation (en français, avec les étudiants de 2ème années programme français, enseigné par professeur Jean-Pierre FILIU)
- Wars of Memory (in English, with 2nd year English and French program students, taught by professor Christian DEVOOGD)
- Moyen-Orient Entre Crise et Espoir (en français, avec les 1ère années programme français, enseigné par professeur Stéphane LACROIX)
- Sociology of the Arab State (in English, with the 2nd year English and French program students, also taught by professor Stéphane LACROIX)
Exchange students are capped at this sized course load, but full time students here take somewhere between 8 and 12 courses each semester. That seems impossible, until you realize that some of these classes only met for 6 or 7 2-hour sessions throughout the semester. Furthermore, students also include in their courses some things like painting, or soccer, or theater, that are more atelier courses than academic work.
Nevertheless, I have less work here than I would at home, by far. Fortunately that means that I can spend time travelling, spend time going to all of the talks here and getting involved in extra-curriculars, and putting more time into the classes I am taking... which is most important for me for Arabic. It's a fascinating dynamic in the class, because I much more need to work on vocabulary (you know, so I understand the words we're reading...) whereas the Arab students know all of the vocabulary, but don't know some of the grammar I learned in my first year. Things like case endings in iDaafas, or after haruf al-jarr, or that nominal sentences are divided up into the khabar and the mubtada. I was surprised to see the simplifications they used for these sentences like "after 'inna' the first word is monsoob and the second word is marfu3..." I'm sorry, I know that doesn't make any sense to the people who don't speak Arabic, but it's basically just an oversimplification of the grammatical concept there.
That said, I was definitely struggling with the texts we read. Fortunately, I had the time to go through and translate, and take notes on, texts that would take them ten minutes to read. And I was always able to ask the Arabic speakers on campus for help. Not to play favorites, but if we're talking about who's closest to fuSha, I found that it was the Saudis, Yemenis, and Iraqis... followed by the Lebanese/Palestinians. As much as I love the Moroccan dialect (darija), I still have problems understanding it, even after studying in Morocco. But I liked that the professor, Ababou, was Moroccan, because it meant that even though we were in a fuSha course, he smiled every time I replied "wakha" for "ok."
The Library
Well, the library is pretty much non-existent. It's been slowly getting better this semester, since they've just moved into the building. But still, the library is probably around 2000-3000 books, and is about the size of around 4 Frist classrooms put together. It also closes every day no later than 8 pm, and often earlier if there isn't someone there to work the book check-out desk. The entire campus is closed on the weekends and on national holidays (which included the day before finals started). Also, while you can order books from the other campuses, even the Paris library isn't anywhere close to what you would get at Princeton. The good thing is that pretty much all of the books are on politics/law/religion/economics/the Middle East and the Mediterranean/Europe, so the percentage of books that you may find relevant is probably higher. Also, don't assume that because the book is assigned for a class, they'll have a copy in the library... nope. There are quite a few beautiful tomes in Arabic. Too bad my Arabic isn't anywhere near good enough for me to slog through them.
Honestly, the lack of academic resources such as the library has been my least favorite part about being here. If you're studying here DO NOT FORGET TO SET UP THE PRINCETON VPN before you leave. Having access to those online resources saved my life and my sanity. People here haven't ever heard of JSTOR. They have some kind of French equivalent for it, but the selection (especially in English, of course) was far more limited.
French Courses
The courses here, especially for first-year students, are much more of the style where the professor stands at the front of the class and lectures at you. These lectures are occasionally interrupted by indignant students from whatever country is being discussed vocalizing their beliefs that ______ isn't actually the reality in _____ country. (In Lacroix's Crise et Espoir class, I don't think the Moroccans ever agreed with him). The thing is, it's not really clear who is right. This is partly because the lecture isn't based on studies or readings, but is a synthesis of the professor's understanding of the situation/region. Which is great when you're overwhelmed by a lot of information, but also forces you to take the professor at his word. On the other hand, the students' experiences are often not much more representative of the situation in the entire country. Most of the students, particularly from the Arab world, come from affluent backgrounds, live in nice areas of the biggest cities, grew up going to very Western schools, and often have families involved in politics (ambassadors, ministers, etc). So when they say that "no one feels tribal affiliations anymore," I take it with a grain of salt. Especially when they go on to say that well, maybe there are "family" affiliations, and say that these families can vary in size up to thousands of members.
So... few readings in the course.
Then there's the grading. Depending on the course, I've had between 2 and 3 graded assessments (paper, "fiche", exposé, test, etc.) per course. All grades are given out of 20. A 20 is impossible to get--they're just not given. These students, the cream of the French system crop, have told me that they never even got 20s in high school. You can imagine how thrilled I was to get an 18 on an Arabic final essay. (hint: suuuuuper thrilled) Generally anything about about a 15 is an "A". But here it seems like grades are given much less value as long as you're passing--because with 10ish courses per semester and only one or two grades in each one, people do fail courses. I think if they fail 2 they have to repeat the year. Passing is a 10/20, so right now, during finals period, the end goal for most people is just to "valider" the class. People are going around saying "I need a 4 to validate," or "I need a 6 to validate." It's a very strange concept.
Then there's this whole issue of form versus function... the French looooove things to look pretty. As I was making an outline handout for Wars of Memory*, my partner stopped me and said "No, you have to have two bullet points under this heading, because you had two bullet points under the other heading." I just stared at him. Also, I've seen people turn in 10 pages papers where I swear to God half of the pages were taken up with headings. They also like when you put pictures in your essay. I don't understand. I really just dont understand.
Also, don't expect very much discussion in your classes. As I said, mostly just lectures, some discussions among the more American-style professors.
Ok now I've complained about classes here for long enough, let's talk about the good aspects of the school...
1) A whole different viewpoint: the authors they read here are different, the things they expect you to know are different. I'd never read Weber before, but he's been cited repeatedly in every class I've taken here. Ghassan Salamé has also been cited repeatedly, and he's pretty impressive: he was Director of Research at the Centre nationale d'études scientifiques, and now he's Director of Studies at Sciences Po. He was also Minister of Culture, Education, and "Enseignement supérieur" (which I guess translates to something like university-level teaching) in Lebanon. Anyway, reading all of these different authors (because even if they're not all assigned, I had to go read them to get all the references) very much broadened my academic foundations.
Similarly, the history that most people know off the top of their heads is very different from what we know. We can talk to you all about the Civil War and the American founding fathers, but here the history of the Caliphates and the Roman Empire is really widespread. The Italians, unsurprisingly, have a particularly strong affinity and appreciation for history. I say that with some bias, because it was one of the first things that attracted me about my boyfriend... he started throwing out the names of Roman senators and emperors like they were days of the week.
2) Language and code-switching. Professors are much more comfortable throwing in cultural and language references from English, French, and Arabic here. So when we're talking about Yemen, they'll note that the main square of the protests was "Taghayir" (تغيير) Square, which means "change." Or while they'll also note the king of Morocco as the "Commander of the Faithful," he's also caller "Commandeur des Croyants," or "Amir al-Mu'miniin" because those are the terms for him in Morocco. Also, there are students here who either don't speak French or don't speak English, so for them the common language is Arabic. So in things like dance practice, they'll suddenly switch. While I still have a hard time speaking it back, I actually understand most of it, at least enough to get the gist of the conversation. And through simple things like a line we sing in our dance, I've learned a typical Arabic wedding blessing. (يبرك الله عليها، وربي يهديها, which means "May God bless her and guide her"). Not only has speaking three different languages all the time improved my ability in these languages, it's also generally kept me on my toes and kept me alert.
3) Outside of the class there are more benefits. The most striking one that I've seen is the generally negative view of certain facets of American politics, which forces one to clarify and prove one's own beliefs. I'm among the first to say that I see the mistakes and the injustice of American action in the Middle East, but never once have I truly believed that the U.S. orchestrated or permitted the 9/11 attacks to justify going into the Middle East. I have always considered those conspiracy theories that didn't really deserve my time. However, after being here and seeing so many people who believe them, and having them ask me about so many specifics that I'd either never heard or never bothered to investigate, I realize that I have a duty to find out those answers. I still don't believe that the U.S. planned/permitted the attack, but one of my personal goals for this summer is to write a thoroughly-researched paper doing as much as I can to prove that. Then at least for myself, I'll know what to say next time someone brings up the Michael Moore documentary to me.
As an American abroad, you are most definitely a representative of the country. My favorite exposé (class presentation) this semester was one I did in Arabic on the American Constitution. Yes it took me forever to find the terminology and try to clarify some of the ideas, but when we're talking about a region where so many countries are questioning their own constitutions, I was both proud of ours and excited to be able to share everything I find so wonderful about it. The U.S. is really quite rare in its adherence to its Constitution and the foresight of the Founding Fathers. Even the French Constitution only dates from 1958.
I commend you if you've read this far. For a treat, here's the Lip Dub that we created for the end-of-year inter-campus competition (Minicrit)!!
------------------------------
*Rant: I take plenty of French classes here, along with other non-francophone students, and we never speak in English in class, or get words translated into English for us. But in the English classes, students regularly switch into French to ask questions, professors show videos in French without subtitles, and we included on our outline translations of words that are normal for anglophones, but that would be challenging for francophones. Words such as "steed," "doth," "dost," and "scions." Granted, the French in class never really bothered me personally because I speak French, but really it's the principle of the thing...
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