Apr 13 – This is not a North American classroom
I went to my first classes this week. Compared to Schulich, it sounds like it’s going to be an easy ride. I have 12 hours of class every week. It’s supposed to be 14 hours, but two of my classes are at the same time, so I alternate between them. There aren’t any stupid assignments! I am most happy about that! My German language class doesn’t have a final exam. My tourism class is 100% based on a 90 minute exam. My management class is 50% project, 50% exam. I haven’t been to my stats class, because it’s at the same time as my management class. I will be at stats class this week, because management class is only every other week. Finally, I have a 5-day seminar in June on non-profit organizations.
Really, I’m still pretty relaxed, although my schedule isn’t fixed yet. They have a strange way of signing up for classes here. Each student gets a certain number of points. There are about 4 bidding rounds and, in each round, you put down however many points you want on each class that you want to sign up for. The person who put down the most points on a particular class gets enrolled in that class first, and then the person who put down the second most points, and so on, until the class is full. It’s like gambling for classes. I’d be really annoyed, because it’s a long process and you never know what you’ll end up with. You could end up wasting so many points on a class that you really want, but nobody else does. Anyways, I’m happy with how it’s done at York.
There are two other strange things that I noticed which seem to contradict each other. In Toronto, there’s a great deal of formality between students and professors. The professors usually demand respect and there’s usually a hierarchy that a student has to go through when they want to ask a question about the course. I.e. “I am the professor and you are the student. Speak to the T.A. before speaking to me. Schedule an appointment. If you want to talk, you can leave.” And so on. In my first-year economics class, there were about 500 students in one lecture hall and the prof would tell you to shut up if you were having a conversation with someone else. A prof even once told a student to leave the room if he didn’t want to stop reading the newspaper and listen to her, even though he was being quiet and not disturbing anyone. Here, a class could be only 40 students, but there are always multiple conversations going on loud enough that I could listen to them if I wanted to. The prof just keeps on teaching right through them and then thanks us for our attention at the end of the class.
Some would say that this suggests a lack of respect, but I think that it’s just a more casual environment. At the end of every lecture, all the students rap their knuckles on the desk as “applause”. The first time this happened, I was initially utterly confused at what was going on and weirded out. I think it’s the one thing since I’ve gotten here that I can’t bring myself to do as an act of integration. I greet people on any street that isn’t downtown and I’ve gotten used to not tipping 15%, but I can’t seem to rap my knuckles on a desk at the end of a lecture. It must be the weirdest thing I’ve seen since I’ve gotten here, but I also always forget that it happens at the end of the lecture and I’m always surprised.
Really, I’m still pretty relaxed, although my schedule isn’t fixed yet. They have a strange way of signing up for classes here. Each student gets a certain number of points. There are about 4 bidding rounds and, in each round, you put down however many points you want on each class that you want to sign up for. The person who put down the most points on a particular class gets enrolled in that class first, and then the person who put down the second most points, and so on, until the class is full. It’s like gambling for classes. I’d be really annoyed, because it’s a long process and you never know what you’ll end up with. You could end up wasting so many points on a class that you really want, but nobody else does. Anyways, I’m happy with how it’s done at York.
There are two other strange things that I noticed which seem to contradict each other. In Toronto, there’s a great deal of formality between students and professors. The professors usually demand respect and there’s usually a hierarchy that a student has to go through when they want to ask a question about the course. I.e. “I am the professor and you are the student. Speak to the T.A. before speaking to me. Schedule an appointment. If you want to talk, you can leave.” And so on. In my first-year economics class, there were about 500 students in one lecture hall and the prof would tell you to shut up if you were having a conversation with someone else. A prof even once told a student to leave the room if he didn’t want to stop reading the newspaper and listen to her, even though he was being quiet and not disturbing anyone. Here, a class could be only 40 students, but there are always multiple conversations going on loud enough that I could listen to them if I wanted to. The prof just keeps on teaching right through them and then thanks us for our attention at the end of the class.
Some would say that this suggests a lack of respect, but I think that it’s just a more casual environment. At the end of every lecture, all the students rap their knuckles on the desk as “applause”. The first time this happened, I was initially utterly confused at what was going on and weirded out. I think it’s the one thing since I’ve gotten here that I can’t bring myself to do as an act of integration. I greet people on any street that isn’t downtown and I’ve gotten used to not tipping 15%, but I can’t seem to rap my knuckles on a desk at the end of a lecture. It must be the weirdest thing I’ve seen since I’ve gotten here, but I also always forget that it happens at the end of the lecture and I’m always surprised.
posted by lilswtamy at 3:44 p.m.
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